When it comes to revenue, Oracle is the number one relational database. Gartner reported the following numbers for Oracle in 2006:
- Has 47.1 percent share (up from 46.8 percent in 2005) growing at 14.9 percent
- Is growing faster than the market average of 14.2 percent with US$7.2 Billions in revenues
- Continues to hold more market share than its two closest competitors combined
But, instead, if the question is which database is most deployed, the answer is Microsoft SQL Server. A June 2007 report from BZ Research found that 74.7 percent of enterprises are using SQL Server, a slight dip from the 76.4 percent share reported in June 2006.
Oracle comes in a distant second place at 54.5 percent (up from 51.3 percent in 2006).
MySQL has 43.4 percent, up from 38.5 percent, and IBM DB2 has 23.5 percent, up from 20.4 percent.
Only the number for Open Source PostgreSQL users have declined, coming in at 11.2 percent, down from 11.6 percent in 2006.
Users in the survey commented that a main reason for the popularity of Microsoft’s SQL server is that it is easy to use. Oracle is perceived as being overly complex and difficult to maintain. 45.9 percent of those surveyed said that the main reason a specific database was selected was because of familiarity. The second most cited reason was for “high availability and reliability features”.
