Re: Microsoft destroys TPC-C records!

> people will start realizing that SQL Server/Windows 2000 is a solution
> for the Enterprise. The solution will probably be much cheaper than
> say a Oracle/SUN solution. Wait till the end of this year and look at
> where 2000 datacenter is at and where SQL 2000 can scale and then we

SQL server is in an odd position right now. Enterprise users don't trust it and certainly don't trust NT to provide them with high uptimes. For serious applications they seem to prefer mainframes or Solaris clusters. This shuts SQL server out of the picture. Also SQL server cost calculations have include a per user license for NT as well as SQL server so it does not end up cheaper then Oracle or DB/2. You can run these on Solaris or Linux neither one of which has a per user fee associated with it.

On the bottom end SQL server is being pressured by databases like sqlanywhere, interbase adn postgres which are free or cheap. Right now by not making Access SQL92 compliant they seem to provide a hurdle to upsizing to other databases but the open source model seems to be adapting well as there are numerous tools for upsizing access to postgreslq.

In summary. SQL server is being pressured on the high end by Oracle and IBM, and on the low end by free databases that are very capable of serving your average small business. Their only tools to fight back are a monopoly in desktop databases (access) which makes it hard to upsize to other databases and a monopoly in operating systems which they use to subsidize the SQL server pricing structure. It remains to be seen if they can increase their market share (around 10% last I checked) using these techniques while still ignoring corba, java, unix, other technologies that they did not invent. Of course if they get broken up or the pyramid scheme they have going by buying and selling their own stock collapses I would expect to SQL server to be priced much higher then it is now. Received on Wed Mar 22 2000 - 12:41:19 CST