Determining market penetration.

Hi all,

I have been having a debate recently on another forum about database market penetration and how to measure it.

My point of view would be that even for companies which *_only_* produce databases (Oracle until recently, MySQL, say now), it is impossible from their financial filings to determine how many

1. paid for installs there are

and

b) if an install is paid for, how much was paid (VAR, Corporate resellers, OEM agreements, <insert contractual agreement of your choice>).

The thrust of my argument has been that, in the absence of any other reliable metrics, an analysis of job adverts in a particular market (say country) is *_AS GOOD A WAY AS ANY_* to determine market penetration (if no absolute revenue or number of (paid for) installs is available - normally the case - and even then, they are potentially misleading).

Can anyone think of or does anyone know of a better metric for measuring db penetration than job ads? They don't *_always_* mention the db they are targetting, but *_usually_* there is some mention of the particular implementation (be it Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, Informix, DB2.... whatever).

I would like to know

1. do people out there feel that this is a good (best) way of measuring market penetration?
2. if not, how would *_you_* measure db market penetration given currently available data from software companies and your particular market?

I am not a bigot here, and am willing to listen to any/all ideas that people might have about how to measure an entity which is very difficult to get a grip on.

 I mean, even if you have Oracle's revenue for (my country, Ireland), that doesn't breakdown VAR/OEM/Corporate deals, nor will it detail support (24 hour, 1 day, 5 day - on site, off site - whatever).

For example, I have read that Ryanair use Oracle on HP-UX boxes - more or less the Cartier of db solutions - but could I obtain any idea of how much Ryanair are paying for that - no chance. I would *_assume_* that Ryanair have round-the-clock, engineer living on site type support but

1. I have no way of proving that

and anyway

b) I have no idea of what Oracle is charging for that service.

So, guys, I'm basically asking - what is the best metric to use for establishing (even a rough) an idea of db penetration in a given market. Personally I can't see a better one than job-ads, but am more than willing to listen to other ideas/concepts that people might have.

TIA. Paul....

-- 

plinehan __at__ yahoo __dot__ __com__

XP Pro, SP 2, 

Oracle, 9.2.0.1.0 (Enterprise Ed.)
Interbase 6.0.1.0;

When asking database related questions, please give other posters 
some clues, like operating system, version of db being used and DDL.
The exact text and/or number of error messages is useful (!= "it didn't work!").
Thanks.
 
Furthermore, as a courtesy to those who spend 
time analysing and attempting to help, please 
do not top post.