MSFT: Microsoft Advances Data Platform for Customer Gain

Microsoft Corp. today announced upcoming product milestones designed to help information workers, IT professionals and developers manage data complexity. In his keynote speech at the 2006 Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Community Summit, Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Data and Storage Platforms, detailed priorities for Microsoft’s data platform. Focusing on support for dynamic application environments, automation and continuous availability, beyond relational and end-to-end insight, Flessner announced the upcoming release of Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Visual Studio® Team Edition for Database Professionals, as well as the immediate availability of the Release Candidate (RC) of SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition.

“With just 12 months on the market, we’ve been humbled by the industry momentum for SQL Server 2005. Customer and independent software vendor adoption of our data platform has resulted in more than 30 percent year-over-year revenue growth in the last quarter alone,” Flessner said. “The innovation, tools and guidance we’re announcing today are designed to help customers as they continue to build the next generation of business solutions on the SQL Server platform.”

Optimize Data Virtually Any Time, Anywhere

Today’s business is challenged by a new generation of occasionally connected and data-intensive applications. Customers have asked for a solution that meets the requirements of this new breed of application while being able to increase developer productivity and better manage, scale and drive insights from their business. To help address these needs, Microsoft announced the following updates designed to provide tighter integration with the 2007 Microsoft Office system, additional flexibility for developers, and better process guidelines and support for embedded, mobile and occasionally connected environments:

• The availability of the community technology preview (CTP) of SP2 for SQL Server 2005 delivers key updates, including data compression, increased business intelligence functionality, security updates relating to Common Criteria, manageability enhancements, support for Windows Vista™ and optimization for the 2007 Microsoft Office system environment. More details about SP2 are available. The SP2 November CTP can be downloaded immediately.

• The RC of SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition is a new offering for essential relational database functionality in a compact footprint. By sharing a familiar SQL syntax and common ADO.NET programming model with other SQL Server editions, SQL Server Compact Edition allows developers and administrators to apply their existing skills and be immediately productive while building and supporting the next generation of applications. The RC is available via Web download.

• The release to manufacture date for Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals has been set for Nov. 30, 2006. Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals provides a foundation for change management, development, testing and deployment of databases through integrated functionality that enables database developers and administrators to be more productive, reduce risk and drive quality. More information can be found on MSDN.

• Plans to provide process guidance for database professionals are included in the Microsoft Solutions Framework. This process guidance is the first of its kind in the industry and demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to making the database professional a full-fledged participant in the application life cycle.

“Our customers rely on us to deliver a seamless user experience and enterprise-class availability with our online software services,” said David P. Smith, chief technology officer, ServiceU Corp. “With its ability to scale, SQL Server 2005 helps us deliver outstanding performance. We have also made it easier and more productive for our development team to rapidly deliver our next wave of high performing, data-driven applications. Our business depends on enterprise-class databases, which is why we chose SQL Server 2005.”