Gates Plugs SQL Server at Tech-Ed -- Visual Studio Magazine

Data Driverby David Ramel

Gates Plugs SQL Server at Tech-Ed

While Microsoft chairman Bill Gates yesterday talked up everything from Silverlight to robotics in his TechEd keynote yesterday, he also gave a plug for database development and the forthcoming SQL Server 2008 release.

"It's a very big release in terms of what people can do in the data center, how these various pieces connect together, different types of data that we can understand in a very rich way. And so this is central, and it's a big investment for us, something that is very key," Gates said.

Interestingly, he talked up how SQL Server is becoming the engine for other data-driven Microsoft platforms including Active Directory and even SharePoint. "Microsoft has always had a central focus on SQL Server as the place to store data," said Gates. "It's where we have the greatest capacity, the ability to distribute, update, query in very rich ways. In fact, what you see us doing is taking all our different data driven activities, and pushing them into SQL."

For example, now meta directory stored in Active Directory is SQL-based, where objects are replicated. Gates said in the future, Exchange will use the SQL store as well. While SharePoint already uses SQL, "we'll expose more and more of that native SQL power to the SharePoint developer for them to do easy application development," Gates said.

Gates was joined on stage by Dave Campbell, who talked up SQL Server 2008's spatial data as well as its support for file types.

Meanwhile, Gates also threw a bone to shops that use Visual Studio Team System that are managing apps developed for IBM's DB2 database. With the new support, developers will be able to perform DB2 development within Visual Studio.

Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 06/04/2008

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