Microsoft Delays New Database

Microsoft has pushed back the release of its upcoming database software by several months to ensure that it hits the market in conjunction with an upcoming version of its development tools.

SQL Server Yukon, slated for release during the first half of next year, will now come out in the second half of 2004, said Paul Flessner, a senior VP at Microsoft, during a speech at the company's TechEd conference in Dallas Monday. "We've pushed Yukon back," he said, though a beta release is due this summer. In an interview, Flessner said the release of the successor to SQL Server 2000 needs to arrive at the same time as the next version of Microsoft's Visual Studio tools, code-named Whidbey.

"It's going to have super-good integration with Whidbey," he said. Microsoft is designing its upcoming server software -- including SQL Server, BizTalk Server, and Content Management Server -- so developers can stay within the Visual Studio environment to program them. For example, Yukon users will be able to write and debug stored procedures -- SQL programs stored in the database -- in Visual Studio Whidbey.

One feature of Yukon will arrive early: Microsoft this fall plans to ship Reporting Services for SQL Server 2000, which lets users stage relational or OLAP data as a report than can be viewed in Excel or as HTML. It's scheduled to arrive by the end of the year. Microsoft considered releasing the feature less widely, to its customers who have bought Software Assurance maintenance contracts, Flessner said. Microsoft has been trying to deliver more value to customers that enter into the license agreements, and last week said it will offer free technical support and other benefits to Software Assurance customers in September.

Overall, Microsoft said it will invest $1.7 billion in research and development of its Windows and E-business servers during the fiscal year that starts July 1. "We do have a crisis of complexity and cost. Microsoft is part of this," Flessner said. The company at TechEd delivered the first near-final "release candidate" of Exchange Server 2003, and said Windows Storage Server 2003, a file server, will release to manufacturing in June. This fall, Microsoft plans to ship BizTalk Server 2004, which is in testing with customers now.