Speaking of things that make an impression, there are more and more moves that this Redmond giant is making to introduce its solutions into the free and sometimes not so free world of Linux.
Now from his blog official announce that Microsoft SQL Server will be available on Linux platforms for approximately 2016 - 2017. Under the concept that in the new goals and horizons of Microsoft it is not only to sell an operating system but also solutions for data management, seeking to diversify, make more competition to companies like Oracle, which although they are proprietary they have 40% of the market in data management on both Windows and Linux.
In particular, it seems like a very clever move by Microsoft, but how or how good will its integration turn out in Linux? I do not know, we will have to wait to wait for early test versions and some comparison of how it works in Linux with respect to Windows.
The truth is that Microsoft is losing more and more ground in the world of systems and servers, so it is not surprising that more moves of this style, particularly I have come across environments that use Windows Server with Microsoft SQL Server where I cannot reach an agreement on migration to free databases, so I would dare to give it a chance to at least eradicate one of those factors such as Windows Server and install Linux and Microsoft SQL Server. I've done it with those clients that use Oracle and Windows, proving that Oracle and Linux are a good combination too.
Of course, before you ask me, IT IS NOT OPENSOURCE, forget that scenario (at least for now), it will be available under proprietary licenses, payment and also closed code. Competition will have, and enough! with postgres, mysql, mariadb, oracle, among others, however he has known how to move his cards with alliances with Red hat and ubuntu on issues such as Azure.
Weakness or strategy? Are we falling into a trap? I await your comments