IDC WHITE PAPER - Microsoft SQL Server 2012: Potential Game Changer

Tha IDC paper was commissioned by Microsoft and is a piece of marketing material. I'm a SQL Server guy, so I'm not here to trash SQL Server. But guys, let's be at leat a bit objective and honest. Useless hypes don't do us any real good professionally. What I'm saying is that no matter how you look at it, you simply cannot seriously label SQL2012 as "brings revolution in our database world", unless you consider adding the features that have been around for a long time as a revolution.

Also, I was breathless to read how the paper spins an outrageous SQL Server licence fee jack-up as good for the customers. I don't blame Microsoft for increasing the licence fee. After all, they are not a charity and need to make money. And they can increase the fee as much as they like. It's up to the customers to decide if they like it. Note that most other vensors are already using a similar licence structure. But the IDC opinions make that sound like a very good thing for the customer. Wow! How low can IDC go?

Agreed with Jack. I don't see the game changer here. These enhancements, to me, seem evolutionary, not revolutionary. It will be a good enough release, but it's not going to turn the world on its head.

Good progress? Yes. Revolution? Not.

It's always a balancing act for any vendor when touting a new version. Of course, you need to heavily promote your new version when you have added good features. But if you are too insanely excited about the features that have been essentially in a direct competitor's product for a long time, you risk making your current version look seriously behind the competition.

Looking at the licensing .. how do they define a "CORE".

For example I have a server with 4 Processors  but it looks likes 16 cores.  However some of these cores are actually just instruction pipelines due to hyper threading feature.   This gets even more confusing on a VM  ...  when is it a "real core".

This is going to get even more confusing  as the core count goes up.

How will this work with HADOOP functionality ... its an old outdated pricing  model.  What if we get 100's of cores like with advances in GPU technology or dedicated sub/co processors.

The price increase is ridiculus for the feature additions. MS claims 100% increase. But 6 and 8 cores are standard now. With two procs as a base you end up with 12 core. This costs over $20,000. Typical low price market intro - gain market share - increase price. In this case it should have been a reasonable increase. Or staged over two versions.