>> It is difficult to know if the figure I have heard quoted of a $5
billion dollar annual industry for the collective market of databases
(not related applications) based on PICK (including U2) is anywhere
close to accurate.
The picture becomes clear if you check annual revenues and a few other
facts.
$5 billion annual revenue from Pick-style DBMS products, excluding
applications, is not close to realistic.
- Universe and Unidata
VMark and Unidate merged to become Ardent Software. It's 1999 revenue
from all sources, including ETL and data warehousing, was $160 million,
$60 million of that was data integration software.
- From Raining Data's 2005 Annual Report
"Revenues remained stable for fiscal 2005 at $21.5 million as compared
to $22.3 and $21.0 in fiscal 2004 and 2003 respectively."
That's million with an m.
3. November 1993 interview with Dick Pick in DBMS magazine
"Pick System has spawned an estimated $3 billion annual market of
applications, enhancements, services and Pick-workalikes".
Pick had 3500 VARS worldwide at that time.
>> and just looked at job-ads, I'm guessing you would really miss the mark. There might be a similar situation for products
like Cache', Berkeley-DB, and others.