The worldwide market for relational database management systems grew by 11.6% to $14.9 billion last year, according to preliminary figures from research group International Data Corporation (IDC).
However, IDC points out that although the growth suggests a strong recovery for a market that has struggled for several years, "the picture is not as rosy as it seems" when a weaker dollar and downward pricing pressures are considered.
Carl Olofson, research director for IDC`s Information Management & Data Integration Software service, adds that the overall trend is favourable, and companies are spending again to meet their backlog.
"However, if one takes into account the weakening of the US dollar over the past year, the picture changes to less dramatic growth rates."
IDC`s report also looks at how the top five vendors fared during the year. Oracle was the leader with 41% of the market, followed by IBM (30.6%), Microsoft (13.4%) and Sybase and NCR Teradata (3.1% each).
The report shows that Microsoft experienced the strongest year-on-year growth on a percentage basis, while Oracle experienced the strongest growth on a whole dollar basis. IBM and Sybase grew slower than the overall market although all top five vendors showed growth in this area.
IDC expects that this year the middle market will be the battleground as Oracle and IBM move aggressively into the market while Microsoft, which dominates it, prepares for the release of SQL Server 2005.
At the same time, all the players will have to contend with threats from open source vendors.
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