History of Microsoft SQL Server
aspect of history
The history of Microsoft SQL Server begins with the first Microsoft SQL Server database product – SQL Server v1.0, a 16-bit relational database for the OS/2 operating system, released in 1989.
Versions
Detailed history
Genesis
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, 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.
Scheduled for the second half of 1988, it was released in 1989. 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.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of Microsoft SQL Server” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.