SQL Server 2000-Yukon
SQL Server is a product in transition -- and a much longer transition than anyone expected. By the time the next version of SQL Server, code-named "Yukon," ships, SQL Server 2000 will be four years old. Does the database have the legs to keep gaining share against Oracle and IBM as it ages?
Probably. Microsoft has not allowed SQL Server 2000 to flail in the market as the company's top database developers work on the sexier Yukon project. Instead Microsoft has steadily added important functionality to SQL 2000 such as 64-bit support, notification services and, later this year, enterprise reporting. SQL 2000 isn't the same product today that shipped in the Fall of 2000.
And analysts say that Microsoft's market share gains with SQL owe largely to the product's strength in small and medium enterprises and within departments at larger organizations. There are no signs that database growth in those sectors will slow or will stop favoring SQL Server.