IDC Ranks Data Warehousing and Business Analytics Tool Vendors

Published: November 20, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The analysts at IDC who hand out grades for the data warehousing and business analytics software markets handed out report cards recently. The markets are continuing to grow at double-digit rates, even as technologies are maturing, because more and more businesses are seeing the value of doing intensive analysis on vast amounts of information in order to squeeze more revenue out of the markets they play in.

The growth in these two markets is, however, slowing a bit. IDC reckons that a total of $7.7 billion in data warehousing tools were sold in 2003, and that the market grew by 11.8 percent to $8.6 billion in 2004, but it only grew by 11.3 percent in 2005, to hit $9.6 billion. A little more than 46 percent of that data warehousing tool money in 2005 was spent on front ends to manage access to the data, while just under 42 percent was spent on data warehouse management products. Another 12 percent was spent on the tools to generate the data warehouses. This breakdown has been unchanged, excepting some minor wiggling, for three years.

For the past three years, Oracle has beaten out IBM as the dominant supplier of data warehouse management tools. Oracle posted $1.85 billion in data warehousing tool sales in 2005 and a 9.8 percent growth rate, compared to IBM's $1.2 billion in sales and a 8.9 percent growth rate. The SAS Institute had sales of just over $1 billion in this area in 2005, growing at 10.7 percent and holding the number three position. Microsoft came in at number four, with $985 million in sales and a 22.8 percent growth rate. In 2006, even if Microsoft's growth cools, it should shoot by SAS for the number three position.

Building, feeding, and maintaining a data warehouse is only half the battle, of course. The business analytics software chews through the data, looking for patterns and turning data into information. Adding in the analytical software on top of the data warehouse software boosts the total market to $16.6 billion in 2006, up 11 percent. And again, the market in 2005 was a little cooler than in 2004, when it grew by 12.3 percent to $14.9 billion.

In 2005, Oracle was the leader in the broader business analytics software space, with almost $2.2 billion in sales and a 7.7 percent growth rate. SAS came in second, with just under $1.4 billion in sales and 13.6 percent growth. SAS is outpacing the market, and Oracle isn't. IBM is also not outpacing the market, with only 8.2 percent growth in 2005 and just short of $1.3 billion in sales. Microsoft, once again, is growing at more than twice the market rate and posted $1.15 billion in sales in 2005, up 23.5 percent.