Channel Best-Sellers: Software
Relational Databases
Microsoft eked out a small gain of 0.7 percentage points in the last calendar year to add to its already considerable sales lead that now stands at 48.4 percent, according to data from the NPD Group/Distributor Track. The figures cover the U.S. dollar volume of database software sold through distributors. While Microsoft's share increase was small, it still represented the largest gain among the top five best-selling databases.
"It's the de facto database software for small and midsize companies," said Ronnie Parisella, CTO at Primary Support, a New York-based solution provider and Microsoft channel partner. The sales volume shares held by Oracle and IBM did not change at all from 12 months ago, holding steady at 24.5 percent and 22.9 percent, respectively. While Oracle and IBM sell more database software overall than Microsoft, many of those sales are direct while Microsoft's database sales efforts are more channel focused.
Earlier this year, however, Oracle unveiled its VAD Remarketer Program that makes it easier for solution providers to acquire Oracle database software through distributors for resale—a move intended to boost sales to SMBs.
Rounding out the top five, Filemaker's share of the total sales volume slipped 0.8 percentage points to 3.4 percent while Sybase picked up 0.1 percentage points to reach 0.3 percent sales volume share.
Microsoft's sales volume gains are smaller than in other six-month time periods—not surprising given that many customers are awaiting SQL Server 2008, the next generation of the product, that's due by the middle of next year. Oracle began shipping its Oracle Database 11g in July after the January through June 2007 period covered by these latest sales numbers. IBM, however, began shipping the Viper release of its DB2 database software in mid-2006.
-- Rick Whiting
Storage Management Software
In June of this year, Symantec decided that it should roll out the old Veritas brand for its storage management software after trying to downplay it since the acquisition of the company by the same name a couple years ago.
Symantec was right in that solution providers and end- user customers more readily recognize the Veritas brand name, as seen in the most recent CMP Channel Best Sellers data from the NPD Group/Distributor Track which includes GTDC distributor data.
According to that survey, 55.3 percent of storage management software being sold through distribution went out under the Veritas name in the first half of this year, compared to only 47.7 percent during the same period in 2006.
However, distribution sales of Symantec-branded storage management software fell even more to a 9.5 percent share of the market, compared to 18.9 percent last year.
That overall drop of Symantec/Veritas market share through distribution probably resulted from legacy issues related to Symantec's takeover of Veritas, said one solution provider, who preferred to remain anonymous.
Rob Wolfe, president and CEO of AvcomEast, a Vienna, Va.-based solution provider, said he is pleased with the support from Symantec's field reps and channel engineers, regardless of whether the product is branded Symantec or Veritas. "Their margins and programs are really good," he said. "Partner compensation is terrific, as long as we use their deal registration program."
The battle for second place in the storage management software distribution market saw a big change as IBM passed CA to grab the No. 2 position.
Pete Elliot, director of marketing at Key Information Systems, a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based IBM solution provider, said the only thing holding back IBM Tivoli-branded storage management software was the fact that customers tend to be mainly all-IBM shops.