History of Microsoft SQL Server: Difference between revisions

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By the late 1980s [[Microsoft]] was interested in the low end of the [[database software]] market, while [[Sybase]] focused on the [[Fortune 1000]]. After the former discussed a partnership with Sybase rival [[Informix Corporation]],<ref name="rdbmsingressybase20070613">{{Cite interview |interviewer=Doug Jerger |title=RDBMS Workshop: Ingres and Sybase |url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102702565-05-01-acc.pdf |access-date=2025-05-30 |publisher=Computer History Museum |date=2007-06-13}}</ref> in January 1988 Microsoft joined [[Ashton-Tate]] and Sybase to create a variant of [[Sybase SQL Server]] for [[IBM]] [[OS/2]] (then developed jointly with Microsoft) compatible with Ashton-Tate's [[dBASE]] software. [[Information Builders]], [[Borland]], and [[Symantec Corporation]] announced support for the product. Microsoft's [[Bill Gates]] praised Sybase as the best SQL database engine, and persuaded Ashton-Tate to use it instead of its own. Rivals such as [[Microrim]] ([[R:Base]]), [[Novell]], [[Oracle Corporation]], and [[Lotus Development]] said that they would use their own technology, or that they expected IBM's own SQL technology in OS/2 Extended Edition to be the standard.{{r|mace19880118}}

Scheduled for the second half of 1988,<ref name="mace19880118">{{Cite magazine |last=Mace |first=Scott |date=18 January 1988 |title= Ashton-Tate, Microsoft Join Forces To Introduce SQL Database Server|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dz8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false |access-date=2025-05-25 |magazine=[[InfoWorld]] |pages=1,8 |volume=10 |issue=3}}</ref> it was released in 1989.<ref>{{cite book|last=Harris|first=Scott|author2=Curtis Preston|title=Backup & Recovery: Inexpensive Backup Solutions for Open Systems|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M9mbAgAAQBAJ&q=origins+of+SQL+Server+Sybase&pg=PA562|year=2007|publisher=O'Reilly|isbn=978-0596102463|page=562}}</ref> This was the first version of Microsoft SQL Server, and served as Microsoft's entry to the enterprise-level database market, competing against Oracle, IBM, Informix, Ingres and later, Sybase. SQL Server 4.2 was shipped in 1992, bundled with OS/2 version 1.3, followed by version 4.21 for [[Windows NT]], released alongside Windows NT 3.1. SQL Server 6.0 was the first version designed for NT, and did not include any direction from Sybase.

Sybase revenue grew quickly during the late 1980s from the Microsoft relationship.{{r|rdbmsingressybase20070613}} About the time [[Windows NT]] was released in July 1993, Sybase and Microsoft parted ways and each pursued its own design and marketing schemes. Microsoft negotiated exclusive rights to all versions of SQL Server written for Microsoft operating systems. (In 1996 Sybase changed the name of its product to [[Adaptive Server Enterprise]] to avoid confusion with Microsoft SQL Server.) Until 1994, Microsoft's SQL Server carried three Sybase copyright notices as an indication of its origin.