According to Sanjiv Mathur, marketing manager, Microsoft India, there has been an increasing demand from both the centre and state governments for faster and easier to use databases. In addition, with banks also moving more and more online there has been demand for data warehouses. The SQL Server 7.0 from Microsoft will address businesses like data warehousing and also line of business applications, mobile computing, branch automation and e-commerce, he said.

A significant feature of the new server is universal data access. SQL Server 7.0 is a platform for developing multi-tier, enterprise applications that require access to diverse relational and non-relational data. The collection of software components interact using a common set ofsystem-level interfaces called OLE DB, says Mathur.

Most of the data warehousing technologies are proprietary in nature and hence expensive. Microsoft is offering a new user interface with SQL Server 7.0 at costs much lower than existing players. A five-user SQL Server 7.0 has been pegged at Rs 48,000 compared to around Rs 1.5 lakh for an Oracle product.