Microsoft Aiming To Shake Up Storage World

Microsoft

Gordon Mangione, vice president of the SQL Server team at Microsoft, told Fusion attendees here on Friday that Ballmer personally asked him to build a storage infrastructure "that all our applications over time can be built on top of."

Mangione compared the "big, bold bet" that his SQL Server team is making on storage to the company's Internet bet in 1995. He described a fervent and passionate putter-wielding Ballmer exhorting Mangione to take up the challenge. "If this is the kind of bet we are going to be making going forward . . . if we align all our resources . . . and line up with our partners, we are unstoppable," Mangione said he told Ballmer.

What's more, Mangione said that the 2003 versions of Microsoft's server products will take "the .Net framework and just bake it directly into the applications."

He said the 2003 offerings will deeply integrate .Net into Exchange Kodiak, BizTalk, Windows Longhorn and other products to "take service to the next level."

Mangione boasted that Microsoft has passed Oracle in database revenue. "The lines have [been crossed," he asserted. "We passed Oracle. . . . I guarantee you they will never, ever, ever pass us again." The statement drew loud applause from several thousand Microsoft partners.

Mangione said SQL Server growth is being driven by businesses' demand for greater performance at lower prices. "TCO [total cost of ownership is back with a vengeance," he said.

Microsoft's server business is the "engine of growth in Microsoft for the future," he said.

When he joined Microsoft 11 years ago from Northern Telecom, Mangione said there were only 11 employees in the server group. Now, 40 percent of Microsoft is working in the server space, he said. "Thousands of engineers are working in the enterprise [server space for Microsoft," he said.