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SQL Server 2008 On Track for Summer Release
Published: July 16, 2008
by Alex Woodie
SQL Server 2008 will be released on schedule this quarter, and will not be delayed again, Microsoft executives said at last week's annual Worldwide Partner Conference. The statement gives hope to Windows developers that they will finally get their hands on the important product update, which is critical for utilizing the latest goodies in its Visual Studio development environment and the Windows Server operating system.
During 2006 and 2007, Microsoft had planned to deliver SQL Server 2008 during the second quarter of 2008. However, just before February's big "Heroes Happen Here" event to launch Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Server 2008, Microsoft pushed back the launch of SQL Server 2008 another three months.
In recent weeks, rumors have circulated that there could be another delay in SQL Server 2008. At its partner conference last week in Houston, Texas, Bob Kelly, Microsoft's corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing, nipped the rumor in the bud when he told attendees that SQL Server 2008 will be on the final price list for August. "It's a very exciting release for us," he said.
Microsoft released the near-final Release Candidate (RC) 0 test build of SQL Server 2008 at the TechEd event last month. It's believed that there will be no more RCs before the product is released to manufacturing (RTM).
When SQL Server 2008 does RTM in August or September, customers will finally be able to start utilizing SQL Server 2008 and its various enhancements, including:
- new data encryption and compression features
- better policy-based management
- new full-text search capabilities
- enhanced database mirroring
- new resource governors
- the capability to add a CPU without requiring downtime
- support for Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
- support for the ADO.NET framework's new Entity Data Model
- new date and time types
- SQL enhancements
- OLAP performance enhancements
- closer integration with Word.
Pricing for SQL Server 2008 will be the same as for SQL Server 2005. Licenses for Enterprise Edition, which has no processor limit, will cost $25,000 per processor, while Standard Edition, which can only be run on servers with four or fewer processors, will cost $6,000 per processor. The Workgroup Edition, which runs on one- or two-processor servers, will cost $3,899.
RELATED STORIES
SQL Server 2008 Delayed--Is Windows Server 2008 Next?
No Price Increase for SQL Server 2008
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