True Disruption – The GQL Standard for Graph DBMS Arrives

For years now, I’ve been watching the excruciatingly slow process of ISO language standard development as a number of academicians, national standards bodies, scientists and DBMS firms inched their way towards the creation of a standard query language for graph DBMS. To put this in perspective, the ISO has created exactly one DBMS language standardContinue reading “True Disruption – The GQL Standard for Graph DBMS Arrives”

DBMS Market in 2023 – Transition Continues

My friend, Gartner analyst Adam Ronthal, has updated his famous “spaghetti chart” of DBMS market share for 2023, and as usual, even a quick inspection is very instructive. The leading 4 (AWS, Microsoft, Oracle and Google) held their positions. Some “hot” players are continuing to rise, while old stalwarts continue to hold on or dropContinue reading “DBMS Market in 2023 – Transition Continues”

Dive Deeper into Gartner’s 2023 Cloud DBMS Magic Quadrant: Key Takeaways and Beyond

I recently collaborated with my colleague Sanjeev Mohan on our first joint written piece since leaving Gartner. We picked a favorite topic – Database Management Systems. These are our views, and should not be construed as Gartner’s position. Gartner’s 2023 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems, published in December 2023 based on vendor evaluationsContinue reading “Dive Deeper into Gartner’s 2023 Cloud DBMS Magic Quadrant: Key Takeaways and Beyond”

DBMS 2022 Revenue Up 14%

2021 was a pivotal year in the DBMS market, as a I wrote in that year’s version of this analysis. Gartner has now published its revenue estimates for 2022, and the growth trends I discussed then have continued. DBMS market revenues passed $90B, an increase of over $11B over 2021. That is a significant decelerationContinue reading “DBMS 2022 Revenue Up 14%”

The Era of Microsoft on Windows-Only Is Over – OMG

Written by Donald Feinberg and Merv Adrian On 25-Sep-2017 at Ignite, Microsoft announced general availability of SQL Server 2017, now supporting both Windows and Linux platforms, as well as support for containers. It can now book revenue for a product already widely used by early release customers. What does this imply for the $34.4 billion database management system (DBMS) Market? Over theContinue reading “The Era of Microsoft on Windows-Only Is Over – OMG”

Strata Standards Stories: Different Stores For Different Chores

Has HDFS joined MapReduce in the emerging “legacy Hadoop project” category, continuing the swap-out of components that formerly answered the question “what is Hadoop?” Stores for data were certainly a focus at Strata/Hadoop World in NY, O’Reilly’s well-run, well-attended, and always impactful fall event. The limitations of HDFS, including its append-only nature, have become inconvenient enough toContinue reading “Strata Standards Stories: Different Stores For Different Chores”

Perspectives on Hadoop Part Two: Pausing Plans

By Merv Adrian and Nick Heudecker  In the first post in this series , I looked at the size of revenue streams for RDBMS software and maintenance/support and noted that they amount to $33B, pointing out that pure play Hadoop vendors had a high hill to climb. (I didn’t say so specifically, but in 2014, Gartner estimates thatContinue reading “Perspectives on Hadoop Part Two: Pausing Plans”

Perspectives on Hadoop: Procurement, Plans, and Positioning

I have the privilege of working for the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, covering information management with a strong focus for the past few years on an emerging software stack called Hadoop. In the early part of 2015, that particular technology is moving from early adopter status to early majority in its marketplaceContinue reading “Perspectives on Hadoop: Procurement, Plans, and Positioning”

Hadoop Questions from Recent Webinar Span Spectrum

This is a joint post authored with Nick Heudecker There were many questions asked after the last quarterly Hadoop webinar, and Nick and I have picked a few that were asked several times to respond to here. –More on my Gartner blog—

Which SQL on Hadoop? Poll Still Says “Whatever” But DBMS Providers Gain

Since Nick Heudecker and I began our quarterly Hadoop webinars, we have asked our audiences what they expected to do about SQL several times, first in January 2014. With 164 respondents in that survey, 32% said “we’ll use what our existing BI tool provider gives us,” reflecting the fact that most adopters seem not to wantContinue reading “Which SQL on Hadoop? Poll Still Says “Whatever” But DBMS Providers Gain”