In Firebird-general@yahoogroups.com,
"paulruizendaal" <pnr@j...> wrote:


<IB/FB> being 2% of db market.

> The rdbms market is about $14 billion.

OK, you're talking tough now, big fellah!

Can you give a reference for this figure
please - I know and accept that my 2%
original reference was vague, but I
genuinely can't find it again - and also
I admit that I *_may_* have been mistaken.

(Do I get bonus points for this shocking
admission to make on a newsgroup?)

> 2% makes $240 million. This is
> more than the whole turnover of Borland,
> I think. The opens source DB
> market is estimated at $120-150 mln.
> MySQL does about 40, Sleepy Cat
> about 20.

Maybe the 2% refers to installs/working
systems - with IB and FB together -
obviously there is no revenue for FB.

How is IBPhoenix doing in the support
area? Do they issue figures? There is obviously
some demand (several admin tools, diagnostic
tools), otherwise developers wouldn't go
to the trouble of developing them for
sale.

> > I'm sorry, but where the hell is PostgreSQL?


> The PostgreSQL community is large and vibrant, but
> actual deployments seem to be quite limited.

How do you know this? Reference? PostgreSQL is
included in virtually every Linux distro that
I've ever seen.

> The highest estimate I heard was 300K installations

From where?

> (with most estimates being around 100K).

From where?

> Not having a windows version until recently has
> not helped them in the mid-market (say 100 to
> 1000 employees, very often windows shops).

Agreed - not being natively Widoze won't have
helped them. However, I would argue that if
"mid-market" is defined as 100-1000 employees
(I would say mid-to-large, but then I'm from
Ireland which has a much smaller population
than most countries), then finding someone
with the ability to install a PostgreSQL
db on a Linux box in an IT dept. of such
a firm would not have been that hard, and it
does possess good interfaces ODBC/JDBC &c.

> > Informix?

> Rapidly shifted into DB2. Best current
> estimate around 100K.

My understanding is that IBM were having a lot
of "trouble" shifting users and have essentially
stopped trying to move them - unfortunately
again, I don't have a reference for this. I
frequent various newsgroups and visit different
db relevant sites, so it's not always possible
for me to remember where I picked up a bit of
info. Do you have a reference for your estimate
of 100K? I will tomorrow try and do some sort
of Google for no. of users of different systems.

> The rest helped boost DB2 from ~700K to ~1 mln
> installed base.

Again, how do you know this?

Take a look at the different dbs available here
http://linuxfinances.info/info/rdbmssql.html

Where is Ingres? HSQLDB? IBM's gift to
Apache Cloudscape? SAPDB? Ocelot? Adabas?
Pervasive? DaffodilDB? SQLLite?

And I've only mentioned a few.

> > Solid?

> No clue. What is your best estimate ??

Not a notion - see all the stuff above.


I'm not *_demanding_* that you provide me with
scientfically proveable figures - what I *_am_* saying
is that it's virtually impossible to assess
unless you use rational criteria - such as
requests on job lists. A remark made by another
poster that "I would just put "Good SQL knowledge""
is a point, but *_surely_* a proportion of
bosses/employers will mention the particular
implementation that they are particularly
interested in - if only to filter out some
candidates?

> > You're trying to tell me that 28% of
> > software developers use Firebird. Sorry, but
> > that just won't wash. Quite frankly, I would
> > be surprised if 28% of software developers
> > had even *_heard_* of Firebird.


> This is a survey of a fixed pool of 400 US
> based developers. Considering that Evans
> does/did a lot of work for Borland, the
> selection may be skewed. On the other hand,
> the vast majority of Firebird usage is outside
> the english speaking world, skewing it the
> other way.

So (and please don't take this badly), this
is more hand-waving which can mean anything
the reader wishes it to mean?

> > Let's boil the problem down. How the hell do we know
> > this? Oracle, IBM and MS are at least publically
> > quoted companies who have a legal obligation
> > to provide honest (at least as far as
> > accountants are concerned) reports to the
> > SEC (or whatever it's called in Merka). Mind
> > you, so does Borland, and try guessing IB figures
> > from their filings.


> True, how do we know? How does MySQL know?

I've downloaded it a few times, but never
used it - am I counted as a "deployment".

Job ads!!!!!!!

> Did you ever notice that unit installed base
> is a closely guarded secret?

That would be *_paid_* installed base?

I've not noticed them shouting the figure
from the rooftops - four million installations
from http://www.vue.com/mysql/, but that doesn't
mention payments. Even with a knowledge of
their annual revenue (which I assume Swedish
law obliges them to file) tells us almost nothing,
because of VARs, Corporate Sales, OEM sales...

> One reason is that huge sales shares often
> translate into small unit shares.

Obviously. IB will give you big reductions
as a VAR - you damn sure won't be paying
full whack on sales of 1000 licences. However,
MySQL is AFAICS a one product company, at
least allowing some crystal ball-gazing.
Borland's revenues are split many ways.

> > One can then glean from such figures (perhaps)
> > an *_idea_* of how many deployments of x,
> > y and z they have - does MS split its revenue
> > figures for Widoze, SQL Server and Office?


> Actually, they do. Operating systems,
> Knowledge worker, Enterprise Systems,
> etc. or whatever the divisions are called.
> Windows and Office is where all the money
> is, the rest is loss-making.

But does M$oft provide actual numbers of
deployments of SQL Server? I would be
surprised if they do!

> > Does Borland split Delphi, IB and JBuilder?
> Don't think so!

> No, they don't.

Exactly, so we have absolutely no way of knowing
how many people paid for an IB licence last year,
or what they paid for it.

> > Give me an URL and a reference as to how they
> > got these "100.000" sites together. How
> > much self-selection goes on? "Oh yes, I'll
> > answer your survey, and pass it to my
> > colleague..."

> The URL is:
> http://www.firebase.com.br/fb/imgdocs/
> FB_Survey_2005.pdf
> Sure, this is a self selected survey and
> should be interpreted that way.

And the way that I would interpret it is
as completely and utterly worthless. No
disrespect.

> > Take a look at www.dice.com, which AIUI, is
> > an American job search site - search for

> > Oracle 12951
> > Sybase 2067
> > Interbase 3
> > Firebird 9

> > Sorry, but those figures are telling me
> > something about installed base and
> > importance and market share of product.
> > And it doesn't all have to do with
> > difficulty of admin either.

> DICE is aimed at the USA market.

Oh *_Puhlease_*!!! You're grasping at straws
here...

www.monster.de - German site

1 Interbase/Firebird job.

Approx. 125 Oracle jobs.

I'm not going to go through every country in
Europe - but given that TNT Germany and also
the German News Agency use it, I would think
that Germany is as good a country as anywhere
to look for these sort of stats.

Maybe there are countries that have a stronger
IB/FB presence relative to Oracle, but I think
you will *_always_* find that FB/IB are
not hitting the big time (see thread title).

> Firebird is small in the US. It is
> small in countries with English as a
> native language. Talk about bias...

Hardly - the US is probably overrepresented
in terms of db/per capita in the world. Also,
see my German search. If you can find me one
country where FB/IB posts equal more than
10% of Oracle, I'll buy you a drink the next
time you're in Dublin.

> > Sorry, take a look at the numbers - real
> > ones, not from vague "internet surveys".

> Okay: I am looking forward to your best
> estimates of unit installed base of the
> various databases. Real numbers, not vague
> proxies.

If you can suggest a better metric than job
offers, I will gladly do a search. In the
absence of real, reliable (legally binding)
data from database suppliers, I cannot think
of one. As I said, I have only *_ever_* seen
one IB/FB job offer in Ireland, and I've seen
thousands of Oracle, SQL Server, less Sybase
and then handfuls of Adabas, IBM and Teradata,
Informix and MySQL.

That, to me, suggests that in Ireland, people
use those dbs in rough proportion to those
numbers.

> > Oh, and BTW, if IB (and I mean IB *_before_*
> > the birth of FB) was doing even moderately
> > well, what prompted Borland to Open Source
> > it, in particular?


> I am told that Borland wanted to do a CA job
> on Interbase and the whole team resigned.

Why would Inprise/Borland management want to do
this in the first place if the product wasn't
making money? What is a "CA job"? Let the
product wither and die?

> Faced with customer fury they paniced and open
> sourced Interbase. When they calmed down they
> reversed the decision.

It was a mess - I agree. But why did a similar
mess not occur with Delphi or JBuilder? It is
just possible that client reaction was "drop
IB and we drop your dev tools" - did that
happen - I dunno - anyone?

> > Having said that, I think (or at least get
> > the feeling) that IB lost clients over the
> > OS issue - before, they would have no
> > problem quoting high (or relatively high)
> > profile clients (some American tank,
> > a Stock Exchange or two) - I have tried
> > to get similar info in the recent past
> > and failed. One would have thought that
> > they would have been only too glad to
> > funish high profile client details.


> Perhaps those high profile wins are Firebird
> now? SAS? FrontRange? German Press Agency?

SAS is certainly impressive, as is its use
in Goldmine. I'm not denying that FB is a
decent db - this whole thread started with
me talking about how I was trying to defend
IB/FB against accusations of being a "toy"
db on Oracle groups. Personally I love it and
have never had a single problem on any system
that I have implemented with it.

> Compiere?

Not a product per se. A ERP/CRM system that can use
Oracle or FB (and perhaps other dbs).


I am *_genuinely_* not trying to knock IB/FB,
(see origin of thread). I just wish there was
a bit of realism or at least some seriously
scientifically justifiable figures given
for usage, not just numbers pulled out the air
through biased surveys and/or wishful thinking.

Spoof sites, while amusing, don't bring much
to the debate either.


Maybe I'm asking for the moon (realistic usage figures),
and *_AS FAR AS I CAN SEE_*, the *_MOST_* realistic
figures (and these are only relative) are in terms
of job offers, because if you have a particular db,
the *_chances are_* that you will mention that particular
db in your job ad - a good SQL programmer is
great, but an experienced IB/FB one for an IB/FB
project is surely better?


Maybe I'll start a thread about metrics for db use
here and on the Oracle and db.theory groups. Maybe
there is a better way of determining db usage
*_IN THE REAL WORLD_*.


Paul...

p.s. just in case you haven't got the message, I'm
not anti-IB/FB!!!!