Survey: Microsoft SQL Server Tops All Databases in Emerging Markets

According to a recent Evans Data study, Microsoft SQL Server is the most used database in the emerging markets of China, India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

The survey of more than 400 developers also showed that the open source database MySQL is closing the lead that SQL has in emerging markets. According to the survey, more than 50 percent of developers in the emerging market countries said they are using Microsoft’s SQL Server, but 46 percent said they are using MySQL.  MySQL is slightly stronger in India and Latin America, but Microsoft's SQL Server leads in China and Latin America, Evans Data officials said. 

"Even in this economic downturn the emerging markets represent a significant opportunity for ISV's [independent software vendors] as we see developer population growth being more than double that of the rest of world," said John Andrews, president and CEO of Evans Data, in a statement. "However, the approach to these markets has to be tailored given the vast differences we find with their developer demographics and consequently the associate differences in their technology and services adoption.”

Meanwhile, other highlights from the survey  showed that Asynchronous JavaScript and X M L (AJAX) has strong adoption across  various regions in emerging markets, but shows more strength in Eastern Europe and India. Moreover, the Evans Data survey showed that India has by far the largest development teams on average than either Latin America or Eastern Europe.

Also, the survey results indicated that Microsoft's Visual Basic is used by more than half of the developers in Latin America, though usually for a small part of their programming time, whereas in Eastern Europe, Visual Basic use  accounts for about 30 percent of developers' time.