SQL Server 2005 Partitions Large Databases

A new mechanism for partitioning databases in SQL Server 2005, Microsoft’s database management and business intelligence (BI) platform, will improve the performance and manageability of large databases, such as data warehouses. Improving SQL Server’s ability to manage large databases could help Microsoft wrest market share from IBM and Oracle, which dominate the market among large enterprises for the most demanding database applications. However, recent benchmarks indicate SQL Server 2005 still trails Oracle and IBM in raw database performance.

SQL Server’s Enterprise Push

SQL Server is the dominant database management system in small and midsize businesses and an important money maker for Microsoft-the product generates more than US$1 billion in revenue for Microsoft’s Servers and Tools division and consistently posts double-digit annual revenue growth. This success, however, creates a conundrum for the company-how to continue to grow SQL Server revenues when the product has achieved dominance in its target market.