Oracle Sails Past IBM To Become World's Second Largest Software Vendor, Microsoft Sill No. 1
Though the hardware market has been contending with declining sales -- at least in terms of traditional PCs -- software is another story altogether. According to latest data released by market research firm Gartner, the worldwide software market grew 4.8 percent to $407.3 billion 2013, compared with $388.5 billion in 2012.d
Microsoft is by far the biggest benefactor of a thriving software market in which it gobbles up nearly two-thirds, or 65.7 percent, of total dollars spent. That's up from 62 percent a year prior, putting the company in an even more comfortable lead for the top spot.
Oracle now sits underneath Microsoft and collects 29.6 percent of the revenue spent on software, up from 28.7 percent a year prior when it was tied with IBM. It's still a close race between the two, though Oracle now enjoys a small lead to own the No. 2 spot ahead of IBM, which sits in third place with a 29.1 percent share of the software market.
"There is a shift in vendor rankings from 2013 at the top of the worldwide software market," said Chad Eschinger, research vice president at Gartner. "This is the first time in Gartner's global software market share research that Oracle has ranked second in terms of total software revenue with $29.6 billion and capturing 7.3 percent of the global market. Global trends around big data and analytics with business investment in database and cloud-based applications helped to drive Oracle's top-line growth."
The only other movers in the top 10 list were VMware (No. 8) and CA Technologies (No. 9), which switched positions, along with Salesforce, which rode an impressive 33 percent growth rate to break into the No. 10 spot.
Microsoft is by far the biggest benefactor of a thriving software market in which it gobbles up nearly two-thirds, or 65.7 percent, of total dollars spent. That's up from 62 percent a year prior, putting the company in an even more comfortable lead for the top spot.
Oracle now sits underneath Microsoft and collects 29.6 percent of the revenue spent on software, up from 28.7 percent a year prior when it was tied with IBM. It's still a close race between the two, though Oracle now enjoys a small lead to own the No. 2 spot ahead of IBM, which sits in third place with a 29.1 percent share of the software market.
"There is a shift in vendor rankings from 2013 at the top of the worldwide software market," said Chad Eschinger, research vice president at Gartner. "This is the first time in Gartner's global software market share research that Oracle has ranked second in terms of total software revenue with $29.6 billion and capturing 7.3 percent of the global market. Global trends around big data and analytics with business investment in database and cloud-based applications helped to drive Oracle's top-line growth."
The only other movers in the top 10 list were VMware (No. 8) and CA Technologies (No. 9), which switched positions, along with Salesforce, which rode an impressive 33 percent growth rate to break into the No. 10 spot.
