Re: Market Share - flame

> > In article <1u0hhoINNjib@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> jparker@hpbs2561.boi.hp.com (Jack Parker) writes: > >... > >Yes I understand that market share is just another piece in the grand puzzle > >determining what product to purchase - and that nobody in their right mind > >(I hope) would dream of basing their purchase decision based solely on this > >piece of the puzzle. I just feel that it is such a SMALL piece of the puzzle > >as to be practically meaningless - unless of course you're talking about > >purchasing a product with .0023% of the market. > > Market share can be a pretty strong factor in a software package developer's > decision on what RDBMS(s) to support. You don't want to be pushing against > the current by choosing one with small market share, especially in certain > vertical markets where a particular RDBMS may dominate. > A valid point Steve and one which I had not considered. (Who me? not consider something?). But you also hit the nail when you said VERTICAL market. This data does not break out into vertical markets. How accurate can vertical market data be? I'm sure that for some areas such as Manufacturing you could probably get pretty decent figures, but for something like Software Configuration Management you might have a harder time. What is the margin of error in the market share figures? 2%? That puts Oracle and Unify at an even keel (based on license shipments) and Informix/Sybase/Ingres dangerously close (based on revenues). Who is coming up - who is going down? These are '91 figures - what has happened in a year (and a half)? Are the numbers still valid? The license data is Unix specific - where Oracle has a much wider distribution on other platforms. After wandering into that mess I would still come out confused as to who the 'market leader' was - leading me back to one of the 'BIG 4' or 6 or 3... (Included from previous post) Source Informix advertisement in Database Programming & Design Worldwide UNIX RDBMS software licence shipments, 1991 ----------------------------------------------------- Informix 37% Oracle 17.5% Unify 14.7% Progress 7% Ingres 5% Sybase 4% Interbase 2% Empress 1% Others 11.8% Source Computerworld Australia Worldwide UNIX RDBMS software licencing revenues, 1991 ------------------------------------------------------ Oracle 47.6% Informix 15.7% Sybase 10.7% Ingres 10.1% Progress 3.7% Unify 3.2% Interbase 1.3% Empress 1.2% Others 6.4% j. _____________________________________________________________________________ Jack Parker - Contractor | Hewlett Packard, BSMC Boise, Idaho, USA| If you keep staring at it like that, jparker@hpbs2561.boi.hp.com | your nose is going to grow (208) 396-5388 (W) (208) 384-1623 (H) | into the bark. _____________________________________________________________________________