Open-source database market is growing

Forrester Research says the open-source database market is continuing to expand, and the future looks bright. Now it's at about $850 million, including software licensing, technical support and services. Forrester estimates the figure will rise to $1.2 billion by 2010. Much of this growth will be fueled by enterprises looking to open-source databases to support Web 2.0 applications and other workloads.

Forrester reported that open-source databases, MySQL and PostgreSQL, are gaining the most traction. But it found that rip-and-replace situations where MySQL and PostgreSQL replace Oracle Database, IBM DB2 or Microsoft SQL Server databases are still rare. "Enterprises would like to rip and replace commercial DBMS[es] in favor of open source, but it's a technology challenge. It's not straightforward," said Forrester analyst Noel Yuhanna.

For more on open source:
- see this eWeek.com article