The market research firms IDC and Gartner Group publish annual reports on the size of the market and the shares of the major participants. The latest IDC report costs $4,500, and the Gartner reports are also far from inexpensive, but the two firms do provide some free highlights in their press releases. Oracle has also republished certain IDC statistics. Using this information, it is possible to piece together a picture of the market's size and growth:
These figures include revenues from new installations, as well as renewal and subscription revenue for existing installations. In prior years, Gartner (under the name Dataquest, a market research firm that Gartner acquired in 1995) would typically emphasize only the new installation revenue, whereas IDC would typically emphasize the combined revenues.
This chart also suggests that the tech crash had a relatively modest effect on the database vendors' revenues. Yes, they all had to cope with a flat to slightly shrinking market rather than a growing market, but as industry contractions go, this one appears fairly mild peak-to-trough compared with, say, network equipment or basic materials. The market plateaued during 2001-2003 (the dip in 2003 may be an artifact of how this chart was assembled from IDC and Gartner data; the actual bottom more likely occurred in 2002), but by 2004 the market had reached a new record high.
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