Microsoft Announces Availability of MSDE For Developers Using Visual Studio

DALLAS, May 24, 1999 — At its annual Tech ·Ed conference, Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Microsoft® Data Engine (MSDE) for the Microsoft Visual Studio® 6.0 development system. MSDE is a fully Microsoft SQL Server TM 7.0-compatible data engine for building mobile and shared solutions that easily migrate to SQL Server 7.0. Solutions built with MSDE for Visual Studio 6.0 are freely distributable and can use the enterprise-class reliability and features of SQL Server, including merge replication to enable mobile computing. MSDE for Visual Studio 6.0 is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/msde/ for developers using any Visual Studio 6.0 Professional or Enterprise language tool, such as the Visual Basic® 6.0 development system.

Benefits to Developers

MSDE enables developers to build solutions that migrate seamlessly to SQL Server when the solution must scale. The same code that runs on the laptop on MSDE can be easily moved to SQL Server or SQL Server Enterprise and immediately provide support for up to thousands of users and terabytes of data. MSDE provides the enterprise-class reliability and advanced database features of SQL Server in a freely distributable desktop data engine, including merge replication, point-in-time recovery and dynamic backup-and-restore.

“MSDE opens new opportunities for developers using Visual Studio,”
said Tod Nielsen, vice president of Developer Marketing at Microsoft.
“Solutions developed with MSDE for mobile or shared use can be scaled to the enterprise, and developers with existing SQL Server-based solutions can offer desktop or trial edition versions with the same code.”

“We built on MSDE because WebBoard 4.0 is the type of product that quickly gains momentum in an enterprise,”
said Martin Ogawa, product marketing manager, O’Reilly Software, an MSDE beta release customer.
“First, a small workgroup posts a discussion board, and then it quickly picks up steam and is adopted by more people in the organization. Because we built in SQL Server compatibility by using MSDE, our customers can simply upgrade to SQL Server and support thousands of users when the number of WebBoard discussion groups grows.”

Telemate.Net Software is taking advantage of the ability to freely distribute products built with MSDE.
“We are now able to reach a larger audience of customers that can use Telemate.Net to manage their network use, cost, security and e-commerce,”
said Dean Rau, vice president for technology at Telemate.Net Software.
“In addition, we can offer our partners a more affordable way to include Telemate.Net with their network offerings. Furthermore, since our higher-end version of Telemate.Net uses Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 as its database, customers can easily migrate without data conversions.”

MSDE Availability and Developer Resources

MSDE is available for licensed customers of any Visual Studio 6.0 Professional or Enterprise edition tool (such as Visual Basic Enterprise or the Visual C++® development system Professional). In addition, MSDE is included with Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, Office 2000 Premium and Office 2000 Developer (MSDE solutions built with Office 2000 Developer are also freely distributable). MSDE supports up to 2 GB of data and is intended for desktop and shared solutions. Developers building solutions with MSDE can find resources such as code samples, white papers and FAQs on the Visual Studio Web site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/msde/ .

When to Use MSDE

Developers will find that MSDE for Visual Studio 6.0 is the optimal data engine when they need to do the following:

  • Develop a desktop solution that may eventually need to support hundreds to thousands of users or tens of gigabytes to terabytes of data

  • Build mobile computing solutions that support merge replication with a central SQL Server

  • Offer a freely distributable introductory or trial edition of a product built for SQL Server 7.0

  • Provide enterprise-class reliability in a mobile or shared solution, including support for transaction logging, point-in-time recovery, and dynamic backup-and-restore

  • Support business-critical requirements 24 hours a day, seven days a week

  • Enable security integrated with the Windows NT® operating system

MSDE is offered as an alternative to the Jet data engine that is included with both Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6.0. Jet 4.0, recently enhanced with features including row-level locking and full Unicode support, remains an alternative when either compatibility with previous versions of Access or conserving limited resources is important.

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“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.

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