Goyal put some figures behind the term “successful,” citing the RDBMS market share figures from IDC that came out earlier this month.

According to IDC, IBM’s RDBMS revenue grew more than 13 percent from 2006 to 2007. Goyal said Informix contributed significantly to the overall number. In fact, he told the packed crowd that Informix’s growth rate is exceeding the rest of the industry, with six straight quarters of year-to-year growth.

Change was a recurring motif in Goyal’s talk. Examples of change in the database market include the increasing use of many small distributed databases to support everything from credit card use for in-flight airline food purchases to tracking RPM on an exercise bike (a use entertainingly explained by 16-year old Aron Lurie and demonstrated by his father, IIUG member and cyclist Marty Lurie).

Other changes include a greater emphasis on energy efficiency in hardware and software for IDS, not just to tie into the everything green (eco-friendly) trend, but to save another kind of green --money. Goyal said 30 to 40 percent of data center costs result from the energy used.

Goyal attributed much of the change in the Informix world to the software’s passionate user community. They ask for changes, he said, and IBM’s development community follows. One interesting challenge being worked on today is to figure out how to connect the virtual retail that goes on in Second Life to the outside world where actual commerce (with actual money) can occur. Linden Labs is working with IDS development teams to try to make it happen.

There’s a lot going on in the Informix world and at this conference—I’ll try to post more about announcements and observations from the show later today.