PALO ALTO, Calif. - International Business Machines Corp. took the No. 1 spot last year in terms of total new database software sales from long-time leader Oracle Corp., according to a new report from Dataquest, a unit of technology research firm Gartner Inc, Reuters reported. Oracle remains king of the relational database software segment that accounts for 80 percent of the overall $8.84 billion database market, but slipped because of competition from IBM and Microsoft, Dataquest said. Elsewhere, Oracle lost ground on Microsoft's Windows server platform -- where it was overtaken by the software Behemoth -- and retained its lead on the Unix platform. "It's not a technology issue with Oracle ... Oracle has a credibility problem with respect to its sales and business practices and its prices," said Dataquest analyst Betsy Burton, who noted that database buyers were cost-conscious in 2001. Dataquest said IBM's total database revenue grew to $3.06 billion from $2.94 billion in 2000. Sales from Informix, which Big Blue bought last year, contributed $264.4 million and the computer giant's DB2 database software products gained momentum. IBM now has about a dozen database products, which run on everything from Windows and Unix operating systems to older mainframes. Oracle, which previously had been on the top of the heap, slid to No. 2 as its new database sales dipped to $2.83 billion from $2.97 billion a year earlier. Microsoft landed at No. 3 with sales of $1.44 billion. Burton said IBM's Informix acquisition gave it the edge over Oracle in 2001.