REDMOND, Wash., June 11, 2002 — The remarkable growth and leadership of Microsoft®
SQL Server (TM) 2000 in the enterprise database marketplace is corroborated by recent analyst firm reports and customer testimonials. These independent analyst reports underscore what customers already know — the SQL Server platform delivers the dependable and scalable infrastructure with the highest return on investment (ROI).
The recently released IDC database market forecast analysis titled “Worldwide Relational and Object-Relational Database Management Systems Software Forecast and Analysis, 2002–2006” (IDC No. 27289) indicates that SQL Server has grown 28.5 percent in new software revenue. The IDC report is consistent with some of the findings of other analyst firms. Gartner Dataquest published a report earlier this month titled “DBMS Software Market: Flat But Not Calm,”* which indicated that SQL Server accounted for nearly 40 percent of new database license sales in the Windows® Server relational database management systems (RDBMS) category in 2001. In addition, database sales for the Windows Server platform (Windows NT®
and Windows 2000) segment grew by 11 percent, representing the strongest segment growth in database license sales.
Industry experts have pointed out that these figures demonstrate a continuing trend in database revenue and expectations. While some competitors showed negative growth from 2000 to 2001, SQL Server reflected the highest true growth in the industry, based on year-over-year database license sales, not including support revenue or external acquisitions. SQL Server is expected to demonstrate further growth as Microsoft continues to focus attention on customer needs by providing competitive pricing and enhanced business intelligence capabilities, as well as updates to SQL Server’s already robust functionality.
The Gartner Inc.** May Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) RDBMS Magic Quadrant report places SQL Server in the leader quadrant in online transaction processing (OLTP) for relational database management systems. OLTP systems automate high-volume, repetitive business processes that are critical to companies today. It is crucial that the databases being used demonstrate high availability, dependability and scalability. SQL Server 2000 provides all these and other advantages over the competition with low total cost of ownership (TCO), ease of use and tight integration with the Microsoft .NET Platform.
FutureWork Systems LLC and RiverRock Systems Ltd. are among the many companies that have deployed SQL Server 2000 to reap the benefits of the platform that delivers the necessary tools for today’s businesses, including these:
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Industry-leading business intelligence
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Extensive integrated functionality, platform and tools integration, and ease-of-use advantages that lead to significant time-to-market gains
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Top performance and scalability, verified by independent industry and ISV benchmarks
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Intelligent, adaptive auto-tuning and configuration capabilities that optimize database performances in the most demanding, dynamic environments
Privately owned, New Jersey-based FutureWork Systems is a provider of Web-based information solutions and technical services in support of the U.S. Department of Labor’s work-force initiatives funded through the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. To create Workforce Performance Matters, FutureWork Systems needed a flexible database because data originating from diverse customer sources needed to be transformed into a coherent data warehouse in preparation for extensive analysis. To provide business intelligence from the data warehouse, the application required a high-performance, multidimensional analysis tool with the ability to support up to 50 dimensions and provide seven-second response times for real-time analysis over the Web. FutureWork Systems created its solution using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 running on the Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server operating system for the data warehouse. SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services provided the high-performance multidimensional query capability, easily meeting the application requirements.
“The Microsoft platform allowed us to do something that I consider amazing,” said Tom Ryan, chief technology officer of FutureWork Systems. “We were able to build a very sophisticated application in less than 18 months with just three developers. SQL Server 2000 gives us a robust and scalable data warehouse that is completely integrated with the Analysis Services and Comshare Decision that we used to create and present the business intelligence. Had we not been working with the Microsoft platform, I think our team would have required an additional developer — and a very experienced one costing perhaps $100,000 a year in salary plus fully loaded benefits. And this position couldn’t just go away when the product was launched. So, for our project, we can see real savings because of the easier development that comes from the tightly integrated Microsoft platform.”
RiverRock Systems, a private operations support system (OSS) software company based in Dallas, delivers proven, Web-based, end-to-end OSS solutions for voice, data and Internet service providers in the communications, utilities and enterprise industries. RiverRock needed a platform that would enable it to provide customers with its highly scalable, highly flexible, yet cost-effective OSS solution: Radix IDC. For RiverRock, SQL Server 2000 was the obvious choice.
“The fact that the Microsoft platform requires so little management and administration enables companies to stay focused on the benefits that Radix provides,” said Cody Hill, vice president of product marketing at RiverRock. “While there is still a layer of database management, the overall involvement is minimal compared with other products competing in this space — and that’s highly advantageous for customers that want to stay focused on serving their customers, bringing new products online and taking advantage of rapidly emerging market opportunities. By deploying Radix IDC on an entirely Microsoft-based platform, RiverRock provides a solution that is as much as 10 times less expensive than its Oracle/Sun counterpart — and that provides significant downstream management and scaling cost efficiencies.”
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is the complete database and analysis platform for rapidly delivering the next generation of scalable e-commerce, line-of-business and data warehousing solutions. It dramatically reduces the time required to bring these applications to market while offering the scalability needed for the most demanding environments. SQL Server 2000 is the next-generation database of the .NET Enterprise Servers and an integral part of the Microsoft .NET Platform.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
* Gartner Dataquest, “DBMS Software Market: Flat But Not Calm,” C. Graham, May 2002** Gartner, “Online Transaction Processing RDBMS Magic Quadrant,” K. Strange, Betsy Burton, May 2002
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