Microsoft SQL Server 2005: The next generation |
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By Staff
07 Nov 2005 | SearchWinIT.com |
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer formally unveiled the long-awaited new release of database product SQL Server 2005 and developer tool Visual Studio 2005 on Monday, stressing the potential of the three products to provide an integrated development platform.
"It's really this cycle of products that gives us the next generation of our applications platform," Ballmer said at the launch event in San Francisco's Moscone Center. He said today's releases, along with upcoming updates to Office and SharePoint, were the culmination of "all the concepts we've been building over the past five years."
Ballmer conceded that the five-year lag between SQL Server releases was too long, but said, "we had a little bit of work to do. We learned a few things about security in the past few years, and I'll be darned if we weren't going to include that in our products."
He described a vision of a "broader applications platform" that encompassed everything from Windows clients to .NET and would be built on "common technologies" and take advantage of the familiarity of existing Microsoft products to offer "security, usability and scalability."
"We're going to try to make sure the whole Microsoft environment is greater than the sum of its parts," Ballmer said.
Ballmer was joined by hardware and software partners, including Accenture, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Avanade Inc., Business Objects SA, Capgemini, Dell Inc., EDS, Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel Corp., NEC Solutions America Inc., SAP AG, Sogeti USA LLC, Symantec Corp. and Unisys.
More than 1500 partners are expected to ship products supporting SQL Server 2005, and the Visual Studio Industry Partner program has 235 members, according to a Microsoft announcement.
One partner featured prominently in the launch events was SAP AG. Forty-two percent of SAP's new installations run on SQL Server, and Ballmer said the two companies were increasing their efforts to take market share from Oracle Corp. in the large enterprise database arena.
Ballmer announced a discount program for resellers that could get customers to migrate from Oracle to SQL Server 2005 in the first year of the new release.
Ralph Muller, SAP's director of development for Microsoft platforms, said SQL Server 2005 was an "evolutionary step forward" and that it provided a product that was well-suited to larger enterprises.
Areva T & D, another Microsoft partner, provides technology systems and services for electrical power generation, transmission and distribution. North American vice president JD Hammerly sang SQL Server 2005's praises shortly before Ballmer's speech on Monday.
Areva now runs its data archiving product on SQL Server 2005 and will be running two other segments of its product line on it in 2006.
"We had been using SQL Server 2000," Hammerly said, but only if the client were below a certain size or complexity. "With the changes in SQL Server 2005, we will be offering it on a much broader basis," he said, citing the "breadth of the SQL Server 2005 product. Its capabilities have substantially expanded, and it now fits in all our deployments."
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