Today it looks more promising then ever.
Microsoft will soon release their SQL Server 2005 in a free version which will replace the present MSDE Server 2000. MySQL has recently launched their new major upgraded version, 5.0, which can handle stored procedures, triggers and views. Oracle recently announced that they will make a free version of their RDBMS version 10G available – Express Edition.
Why is this of interest at all?
As a small Excel-developer with limit resources it may be impossible to learn how to interact with and develop Excel-solutions for larger RDBMS (relation database management systems).
Since the major RDBMS has their own dialects of SQL and other individual properties it also mean that we can directly create and test solutions with correct syntax etc, for instance for Oracle, then first develop with MySQL and then convert it to an Oracle production database.
In view of this I welcome that the major vendors provide us with free RDBMS-version so that we are not limited due to the lack of resources.
However, in this context I find it questionable why Microsoft limit the new DB-functions in the coming Excel 12 to SQL Server 200/2005 only. After all, many organisations use other RBDMS and Excel is widely spread.
Kind regards,
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
I can only think of a few reasons why MS would limit DB functions for non-MS databases. Beside the commercial reason (go buy SQL server) they don’t have direct influence on the development of Oracle, Sybase, MySQL etc.
Luckily for us end users most Database vendors provide handles to use the database in MS Office anyway. Oracle for example provides great office integration and documentation, including coding examples.
Agreed, currently some databases can only be approached with ODBC and that isn’t exactly ideal. But MySQL for example provides MySQL Connector/Net for the .NET framework and I suspect that it will be fairly easy to use in VSTA. Time will tell.
All in all I wouldn’t be bothered to much with the MS support on databases, up until now it hasn’t been much of a problem anyway.
Rembo
Thanks for the input Rembo :)
For those who want to read more about VSTA (Visual Studio Tools for Application which is not the same as VSTO) see the following blog and watch the demo:
http://blogs.msdn.com/vsta/archive/2005/10/29/486850.aspx
Agreed, MySQL Connector for .NET is good and I’m interested to learn how it will work with VS 2005.
Kind regards,
Dennis
This is great news, Dennis. Do you have any link to info about the free SQLserver version ?
Harold,
Check out these links:
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3492296
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/sql/
Regards,
Rembo
Harald,
It looks like it, at present, is only available for MSDN subscribers. At least I have not find it available in public. The links Rembo provided seems only be for a beta release.
So pls check Your subscription in the first place :)
Kind regards,
Dennis
I doubt it will be released until Tuesday (the official launch date of SQL Server 2005). The CTP is available for downloadhere.
There is a lot of info on the official blog site for SQL Express 2005.
For those of You who want to download SQL Server 2005 Express Edition it’s now available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=220549b5-0b07-4448-8848-dcc397514b41&displaylang=en
Kind regards,
Dennis