Sales of shrink-wrapped software for Unix systems is outstripping growth in shipments of Unix hardware by nearly two to one, according to a new report by International Data Corp’s IDC Europe. It expects packaged Unix software sales to grow by a compound rate of 22% a year between now and 1997 in Europe. The overall European Unix software market increased in size by 25% in 1991 over the previous year, according to the report, while the Unix hardware market was pegged at 15%. Unix tools saw a 28% growth – because of increased revenues from database engines, data access and executive information systems, says International Data. Application sales grew 25% and systems software sales grew by 23%. The value of the European database market increased by 37% to $231m and now constitutes 45% of the worldwide market (larger than the US share).
