and now for something completely different...
In early 1998 I was working as Dev Manager at a startup in Scotland building tools for Data warehouse Design and Management, for the most part we targeted Oracle (RDBMS and Express, which they had just acquired from IRI) and Business Objects, with a little work on Ingress. We had one customer running SQL Server 6.5 but it was not a big system and they were always an afterthought with new versions as our focus was on the "real" db, Oracle. We had heard about "Sphinx", "da Vinci", "Plato" and "Tensor" but until Microsoft UK invited us and a bunch of other Oracle ISVs to a preview of Beta 2(in of all places Falkirk Police College!) we had no interest. To say the impact of seeing these technologies was huge on us(as a company and for me personally) is an understatement, it was clear that Microsoft had the intent to execute on an industry changing set of strategies around BI for the Masses and TCO/Ease of use.
We came away unsure of what to do, we had been working on the assumption that we could continue to live in the boutique/high cost BI world that might not now exist. We continued on plan but a couple of us started a skunkworks to play with the bits and see if the reality matched the promise and what to do about it. By the summer we had a prototype of our app running against "Sphinx", there was no/limited documentation on the DTS, DMO, ADO MD or DSO APIs, we worked by using trial and error against the COM interfaces, but we ended up being able to do FAR more against the beta of "Sphinx" than against RTM Oracle as the interfaces were all exposed and much richer. Our prototype allowed us to build Databases, DTS packages, OLAP Cubes and Excel Pivot tables all programmatically from our app, derived from our dimensional model. During this time it became clear that SQL Server 7.0 and beyond was going to fulfill its promise(and more)and I felt that I could contribute to that promise, hence I found myself in Redmond wandering back and forth between building 1 and 3 for interviews, and the rest as they say is history.
Looking back, the "Sphinx" platform achieved everything it set out to do and more, I believe the rationalization of the BI platform industry is a direct reaction to Microsoft's ambitions in the space, I believe the focus from the other major vendors on ease of use and manageability is a direct result of Microsoft's demonstrated leadership in game changing use of self tuning algorithms, automation and GUI. The recognition of SQL Server's success comes in many dimensions, the TPC-C wars of the early 2000's, the implementation of certain features and certain names/limitations of features/products are a form of flattery from competitors (Thanks Larry…) but the true recognition comes in the form of the customers who are able to run their business more effectively, by using the services provided by SQL Server. The sheer volume of apps, customers and data is far grander than any thought possible 5-10 years ago.
As we look forward at the potential for SQL Server it is truly amazing(with the last 2 quarters of > 30% growth being one small indicator…), however for me it seems the future lies elsewhere, after 10 years of working on database systems and tools, today was my last day in the SQL Server Team. On Monday I'll be starting a new position in Visual Studio working on Team Test. As such this blog is going to get a little quiet while I get up to speed on my new role, I still have lots of SQL Server content left to post which I'll get to eventually, but it will not be as frequent as it has been.
-Euan
Comments
- Anonymous
May 13, 2006
Hi Euan,
Thanks so much for all the things you've done around SQL the last couple of years, making SQL Server 2005 a first-class DBMS for businesses of all sizes. I wish you all the best in your new role on the Visual Studio team.
-Bart - Anonymous
May 13, 2006
You inspired me to dig little deeper into SQL, thanx for that and I wish you great success on the new role, you will kick it. - Anonymous
May 14, 2006
Do you work with someone who is just terrific but haven’t told them? Do you look at them as somewhat... - Anonymous
May 14, 2006
I guess our loss is VS' gain. Thanks for all your SQL Server support - you'll be misssed. - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
Euan,
I'm genuinely shocked and disappointed to hear this news. The SQL Server team will be poorer as a result.
And to think I've finally learned how to spell your name properly without having double-check it on google it as well :)
-Jamie Thomson - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
This is one of the saddest things I have heard in quite a while for those of us in the SQL Server community. You have always been an inspiration and a heck of a lot of fun to be around at conferences. Good luck! - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
Mmmmm - thoughts of when they cancelled the MVP programme and somebody know to us getting 10,000's of people to email senior management to get it back come to mind, only its getting you to stick in the SQL team....
I've known ewe for many years now as a result of our work in the SQL Community - its been fun and I've learn't so much from you. This is indeed a big loss to the SQL team but a great gain to VS team - you Gert's boss now?
You've made a massive contribution to the product and should be proud - because we are!
All the best with the future and see you back on the SQL team in a few months ;)
Tony. - Anonymous
May 17, 2006
Hi Euan,
I hope things go well for you in your new post. It's sad to hear that you're leaving the SQL Server team. - Anonymous
May 17, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 17, 2006
Hey Euan,
We'll certainly miss you in the SQL Server space, but something tells me we'll see some SQL Server VSTS tests coming soon? I can only hope :) - Anonymous
May 18, 2006
Hi Euan:
We are going to miss you in the SQL User group meeting in bldg 35. I remember three years back that I talked to you about some indexing issue I had and you gave a me a good workaround. We SQL user group guys will miss your expert comments in the meeting. Good luck in your new role. - Anonymous
May 23, 2006
Thank you everyone (even Tony) for their kind words, its been a fun 7 years.
Alistair, you are of course correct it was tulliallan not falkirk - Anonymous
May 25, 2006
Euanga is leaving the SQL team and joining the Visual Studio Team on Team Test. I relaly hope Euan can... - Anonymous
May 30, 2006
Euan Garden recently said goodbye to the SQL Server team at MS. One of the themes of Euan's blog has... - Anonymous
May 31, 2006
Soon the happy family of Visual Studio 2005 Team products will be enlarged with "Visual Studio 2005 Team... - Anonymous
June 03, 2007
Euanga is leaving the SQL team and joining the Visual Studio Team on Team Test. I relaly hope Euan can