Oracle's database sales declined - But there is more than a single truth...

You will have probably already read about the considerable decline in Oracle's database business in the first quarter of their fiscal year:

• ZDNet: Oracle's database business gets SAP'd
• Bloomberg: Oracle Falls After Database Revenue Misses Estimates
• Channel Web: Oracle Reports Q1 Drop In Database Sales

There are different views why that decline happened. Some say that it is the impact of the commercial crisis. Others argue that Oracle customers are dissatisfied due to high license and maintenance costs and seek for alternatives to replace their Oracle installations.

IBM published a press release this week that stressed the theory that Oracle customers - especially in the SAP area - are seeking for alternatives:

• IBM DB2 Gains New Enthusiasts in Search of Better Performance at Lower Cost

While I appreciate that IBM wins new customers - this is a good thing - I think that this is not the whole truth. There is no doubt that IBM - with the help of SAP - has convinced customers to move to DB2. This is fine. However the DB2/SAP story it is probably not the only reason that caused the decline in Oracle's database sales:

We all heard several times from IBMers that Informix business has double digit growth rates. Rumors said those growth rates have been well above the 30% area. In addition IBM recruited in 2008 over 100 new business partners for Informix. Those business partners are actively developing applications for Informix Dynamic Server and IBM won several deals like the China Telecom, the Bank of Chengdu, the german bank that is now running a huge MACH11 cluster instead of Oracle RAC and many others. Especially in the Telecommunication industry IDS is receiving more and more attention due to it's ability to build highly available and scalable database clusters on low cost hardware. This popularity of this architecture is steadily rising and it is definitely a sweet spot of IDS.

So my conclusion is that the increasing demand for DB2 in the SAP area is not the single truth behind those - from an Oracle point of view - disappointing sales numbers. The declined Oracle database business is the sum of different achievements on IBM's side including a very vital and healthy Informix database business.

There are two cows - DB2 and IDS - giving milk and both have their slice on IBM's success in the database market !