Microsoft taunts Oracle with SQL Server

10-11-2005

by Charlie Taylor

After a series of delays, Microsoft is getting ready to compete directly with Oracle and IBM with the launch of a new version of its SQL Server database software.

The company announced the launch of SQL Server 2005 at a press briefing held in Dublin on Thursday at which it also launched Visual Studio 2005, its software package for developers.

Signaling its ambition to take market share from Oracle in particular, the company said that it was offering a 50 percent discount to customers wishing to migrate over to SQL Server. Microsoft is also promoting the new products by offering free "express" editions of SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 for personal use.

"At present, we sell more databases than IBM and Oracle combined," said Andy Lees, corporate vice president for server tools and marketing at Microsoft. "We have only 20 percent of the revenue but that's because we're cheaper and we don't have high end esoteric databases at esoteric prices on esoteric hardware."

According to Microsoft, its new products deliver a broad family of developer tools and server software that enable businesses to better connect their people, processes and information.

"Today's announcement is all about delivering new platform capabilities with unprecedented integration between the server infrastructure and development tools," said Richard Moore, server business group lead at Microsoft Ireland. "The new products enable organisations to get access to the information they need, when and where they need it, resulting in better business decisions and IT infrastructure that responds to the need of their business."

Visual Studio 2005 features data access integration into SQL Server 2005 and a new Team System tools platform that enables collaboration among software development teams to deliver modern service-orientated solutions. Visual Studio also offers SQL Server 2005's business intelligence engine, XML support and Common Language Runtime (CLR) to give developers a consistent programming model across the Microsoft platform.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 meanwhile provides an integrated data management and analysis platform that helps organisations manage mission-critical information and run complex business applications. The new version comes with business intelligence reporting and data analysis tools that enable companies to gain greater insight from their business information.