Results from IDC's Analysis of the RDBMS Market,

The relational database management systems (RDBMS) market perked up in 2006, showing some vigor, even in unexpected places.

Oracle continued to glide along in first place, bolstered by apparently broad acceptance of the 10gR2 release and the success of key options.

IBM remains in second place but claims significant increases in database sites.

With the strongest growth among the leaders, Microsoft has steadily narrowed the gap.

Sybase showed positive growth as ASE 15 has found favor with users.

Future Outlook: Will the rich continue to get richer? It would seem so; the large vendors are exploiting new markets in the Asia/Pacific region while simultaneously mining opportunities with smaller customers and with the sales of new features and tools to existing customers.Technology innovations are afoot that could disrupt this process, but the impact of such innovations is only very subtle at the moment.

Source: 1, 2

Prashanth Rai