Database market grows 5.1%, Microsoft gains 11%

Microsoft's sales of relational database software rose 11% in 2003, outpacing growth at the market's two top players, IBM and Oracle. The entire relational database market grew 5.1% to $7.0 bil in 2003, after having fallen nearly 6% in 2002, according to Gartner. Oracle's database software sales rose 2.4% in 2003 as its market share declined to 32.6% from 33.4% in 2002, leaving it in the second spot. IBM retained the top position as its market share was flat at 35.7% with growth of 4.9% in 2003 over 2002. The market for databases on the Linux open source operating system more than doubled to $299 mil from $116 mil a year earlier.