MS takes another step to challenge IBM, Oracle

Taking on database giants Oracle and IBM in the enterprise software market, Microsoft announced the much-awaited upgrades in SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 for developers and BizTalk Studio Server 2006 for enterprise application integration.

As part of the global launch, Neelam Dhawan, MD, Microsoft India said: "We are at the next stage in the evolution of Microsoft's application platform offering. These products enable businesses to better connect their people, business processes and information and give customers the ability to make better decisions faster."

Peddling a 'better together story', Microsoft India officials said the upgrades integrate better and can script a much better return on investment than competition.

Said Doug Hauger, business & marketing office, Microsoft India: "SQL Server 2005 is the biggest release of SQL Server "" not just in terms of functionality, but also performance, scaleability and availability. This release will deliver unprecedented integration between Visual Studio 2005 and .NET framework as well as tight integration with other Windows Server System servers to deliver new levels of manageability and total cost of ownership across a customer's entire environment."

To push the products aggressively, Microsoft is even offering express editions of SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 free of cost for an initial period. Said Hauger: "These offerings are easy-to-use database and development tools for Web developers and students so that they can construct Windows-based applications and website easily. Under a promotional discount, these products will be available for free."

Taking a step further, the company also announced that it will include 12 new integration adapters in BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise and Standard editions at no additional charge to customers.

This, added Hauger, gives customers native interoperability to other business applications such as PeopleSoft, Siebel, Oracle database and Oracle Business Suite.

Microsoft added that in India, more than 15 partners including ISVs, system integrators and training companies will roll out products and programs to support the new platform.