Today at Tech Ed 2005 Europe, Microsoft Corp. continued to disclose details surrounding the launch of Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005, Visual Studio® 2005 and BizTalk® Server 2006. As part of his keynote address, Andy Lees, corporate vice president of Server and Tools Marketing and Solutions, announced that these products would launch on Monday, Nov. 7 in San Francisco.
As part of the announcement, Microsoft revealed that throughout November there would be more than 90 launch events spanning 50 countries. The worldwide launch of SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 offers significant advancements in interoperability, developer productivity and mission-critical support. The launch furthers Microsoft’s commitment to delivering the next-generation platform for connected systems to advance business decision-making through greater insight, visibility and alignment across software development and business processes.
“The launch of SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 will truly be a global launch. We will kick off the availability of these products in San Francisco and carry it through Europe and the rest of the world in the following days and weeks,” Lees said. “These products mark a new generation of platforms for connected systems, and are not only designed to work better together, but will enable customers to better connect with existing systems, trading partners, customers and employees.”
Industry Prepares for the Availability of Next Generation of Server and Tools
In his keynote address, Lees cited the Paris Firefighters who are using Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 and have seen productivity and manageability gains. Microsoft expects more than 20 customers, including AB Sandvik Coromant, Nationwide Building Society and Austrian Broadcasting Corp. Radio & Television (ORF), to deploy these products before the launch. Microsoft also continues to deploy SQL Server 2005 internally, with more than 80 applications that store and analyze multiple terabytes of data. Global systems integrators and IT services companies including Atos Origin S.A., Avanade and Conchango also announced plans to build process-oriented methodologies on top of Visual Studio 2005 Team System, guiding software project teams in the delivery of enterprise-ready solutions.
Microsoft also announced two new TPC-H benchmarks from Bull and Unisys Corp.* These benchmarks demonstrate customers’ ability to achieve a security-enhanced, reliable and productive platform for enterprise data and business intelligence applications by deploying SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server™ 2003. In the first TPC-H benchmark using SQL Server 2005, Unisys set a record for 32 CPU performance in the 1TB category. Bull released its second TPC-H benchmark with SQL Server 2005, showing significantly higher performance with record-breaking price/performance.
Next Generation of Server and Tools Offers Greater Interoperability
Throughout his keynote address, Lees cited the investments Microsoft is making to ensure that IT organizations can effectively leverage the Microsoft platform to better interoperate with existing systems.
— JDBC Driver. The SQL Server 2005 Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)
Driver enables Java/J2EE applications on any platform to interoperate
with SQL Server through the de facto Java standard for Database
Connectivity. The SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver is available for
download at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/downloads/2005/jdbc.mspx.
— Interoperability Standards. Today, Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET
2.0 enable developers to create documents that conform to Section 508
of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act and the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C)’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). In addition,
all ASP.NET 2.0 pages and controls generate XHTML 1.0 Transitional
markup by default.
— Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System. Deeper
integration with Outlook® and support for Outlook-managed code will
enable developers to create an entirely new category of custom
line-of-business applications built on top of the familiar Microsoft
Office environment. Developers can download the latest beta of
Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System, which
includes Outlook support, at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/vsto.
— New Reporting Services Report Pack. The SQL Server 2000 Reporting
Services Report Pack for Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server
2003 consists of eight predefined reports that provide a platform for
monitoring the state of disk allocation, Web site usage and keyword
searches. Microsoft also released the SQL Server Reporting Services
Report Pack for Axapta® 3.0, which contains six predefined reports.
These reports allow users to see an overview of customer relationship
activity, review order delivery performance, manage open production
and sales orders, plan purchase orders, and track rolling invoice
activity. Both Report Packs can be downloaded from
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/downloads/default.mspx.
