state of the database nation

A Gartner/IDC report summarising the state of the database market in 2005 contains some interesting nuggets of information.

The database market is still growing at 9.4% (which surprised me a little).

OpenSource databases account for less than 1% of the market but are growing fast (47%).

The Linux platform (thanks mainly to Oracle) is showing the strongest growth (84%).

Despite these two statements of fact, Oracle are not perturbed by the threat of OpenSource (pass the salt cellar).

Market share:

1. Oracle - 44.6%
2. IBM - 21.4%
3. Microsoft - 16.8%
4. OpenSource (MySQL, Ingres) - 1%