Open source's "superficial impact" on the database market

The 451 Group just published a "glass half empty" assessment of the open-source database market. One big takeaway? Open-source databases are widely used, but not yet deeply used.

One of the key findings is that open source software has had a superficial impact on the enterprise database market in that adoption has been widespread but shallow. While open source databases have been widely deployed for Web-tier applications, there has been minimal adoption in the enterprise application tier, and adoption for enterprise applications is at this time limited to certain specific application workloads.

To which I'd respond, yes, but you've got to start somewhere, and it's impressive to be able to start with some of the most demanding customers on the planet (Google, Yahoo!, Digg, etc.). It's a bit like programming platforms in the enterprise: Java and .Net still reign. Importantly, however, there has been a huge uptick in adoption of PHP, Ruby, etc.

Perhaps open-source is growing new markets instead of just cannibalizing old ones? That, to me, is much more interesting than a business of pilfering someone else's lunch money.

[matthew aslett]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the comment. Can't argue with the fact that the first finding is a glass-half-empty view, but it is balanced with a positive view of the prospects for the future. And in the report itself, we do give credit to MySQL for making a sector its own. As I wrote yesterday http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/03/26/open-source-database-adoption-widespread-but-shallow/ "The 451 Group expects the adoption of open source database management systems to continue apace. The adoption of open source software for non-mission-critical applications and new projects will continue, and we expect to see open source databases gradually surround proprietary database deployments. At this stage, mainstream customers will begin to reevaluate their core database management offerings and examine whether open source is a viable option for mission-critical applications."

[matthew aslett]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the comment. Can't argue with the fact that the first finding is a glass-half-empty view, but it is balanced with a positive view of the prospects for the future. And in the report itself, we do give credit to MySQL for making a sector its own. As I wrote yesterday http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/03/26/open-source-database-adoption-widespread-but-shallow/ "The 451 Group expects the adoption of open source database management systems to continue apace. The adoption of open source software for non-mission-critical applications and new projects will continue, and we expect to see open source databases gradually surround proprietary database deployments. At this stage, mainstream customers will begin to reevaluate their core database management offerings and examine whether open source is a viable option for mission-critical applications."

[Travis5650]

Like any report, the devil is in the details. I don?t have access to this data, but I wonder how much effort or study was done in the emerging market regions? I suspect there is a tendency to be N.American focused in interpreting where and how technology adoption and maturity is taking place. The emerging markets are only now looking to build their IT infrastructure to support government and SME entities. They are utilizing oss as much as possible. These build outs will require a higher degree of enterprise grade or mission critical sw. The US and general EU regions have largely been fleeced by traditional vendors which should not be much of a shock to anyone.