Nov. 3, 2009 (PR Newswire) -- REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- During a community address at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Community Summit, Microsoft Corp.'s Ted Kummert, senior vice president of the Business Platform Division, announced the upcoming delivery of the November community technology preview (CTP) of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. Microsoft also announced two new editions providing a high level of scalable solutions: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse (formerly project code-named "Madison"). To help customers continue to realize greater value with SQL Server 2008, Kummert also noted that Microsoft is delivering data warehouse appliances with multiple hardware partners, announcing IBM Corp. as the newest partner. IBM will offer three hardware configurations as a part of SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse 2.0. HP, Bull and Dell Inc. also announced new configurations for version 2.0.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

"Microsoft's vision is to deliver an information platform enabling all businesses to gain strategic value from information," Kummert said. "Companies are looking to compete and grow by reducing costs and identifying the highest value opportunities for their business. We're moving forward rapidly to address these challenges with new capabilities in manageability, business intelligence, data warehousing and the first relational database cloud offering in SQL Azure."

SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP

SQL Server 2008 R2 continues to deliver on Microsoft's vision of a complete approach to managing information assets, with customers already realizing the benefits.

"Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is fundamentally helping to improve our relationship with our customers," said Carolyn Conti, manager of Decision Support Systems at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "Using SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel and SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint Server as an interface for managed self-service business intelligence (BI), we are modeling, analyzing and pivoting millions of records, publishing the information in minutes, and allowing access for geographically remote office branches at a fraction of the time. Our business users can now create and modify their own reports to meet their immediate needs and better service the customer."

SQL Server 2008 R2 is the next-generation information platform that is designed to deliver the following:

--  Managed self-service business intelligence.