Keeping Pace with Oracle,

 
 
By Lisa Vaas  |  Posted 2004-07-26 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


IBM"> At this point, the sooner it gets out, the better. It will behoove Microsoft to keep customers and ISVs happy, OGrady said. "From a platform perspective, I think the growth of SQL Server has slowed a bit," he said. "Its incumbent on Microsoft to get this to market sooner rather than later. Folks are keen for it, and database vendor competitors such as IBM and Oracle [Corp.] are continuing to innovate on the platform and win new customers." Click here to read about Yukons integration issues and its earlier delay.
Indeed, Microsoft is late to the game when it comes to self-healing, autonomic databases such as those coming from its competitors. The Yukon release is therefore a competitive must to raise the bar for SQL Server, according to Noel Yuhanna, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., in Santa Clara, Calif.
"The key focus for SQL Server is on performance, scalability and security, besides the integration with development tools," he said. "Thats where Yukon will obviously raise the bar for high-end performance for SQL Server. "Today, there are limitations for SQL Server to go beyond a certain threshold in terms of scalability and performance, especially [for those companies] running a terabyte-sized database with SQL Server. Yukon will raise the bar in that category, coming very close to what Oracle and IBM are offering." And in the end, whenever Yukon is released, SQL Server still will hold sway in terms of winning the cost wars, Yuhanna said. "The real advantage is price/performance," he said. "SQL Server has an advantage, being a lower-cost [database management system]. If they can offer good security and scalability, [Microsoft] definitely will retain customers, especially in the high-end environments, as well as to help other customers looking for low-cost, to migrate." Check out eWEEK.coms Database Center at http://database.eweek.com for the latest database news, reviews and analysis.

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Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.
 
 
 
 
 
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