I thought Oracle or even db2 would be the Gorillas for serious corporate/goverment databases, and MySql would be the Gorilla for cheap + web stuff.
I suppose Microsoft is pretty popular in beetween those 2 markets.
Oracle IS the gorilla, but with their recent pricing/licensing moves, more large orgs are exploring moving to SQL Server, especially ones that are already a Microsoft shop. My company is doing just that.
Why not explore PostgreSQL? You would be free of licensing/pricing moves.
Re:Announcing SQL Server on Linux
by breakingcups on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @10:54AM
(#11245980)
Not GP, but I've found SQL Server significantly easier to both install and manage. Performance-wise I've yet to encounter a significant difference.
Microsoft rewrote the code so there was no more Sybase code, but it still followed Transact SQL standards. T-SQL is not as complete as PL/SQL and others. It is just that Microsoft is that 800 pound gorilla so people use their products.
My last job I did migration from Excel and MS-Access to SQL Server using VB 6.0 code and ADO recordsets to copy and sync up data. They key was to use a column named date modified that had a time stamp when it was last modified to figure out which record was the newest and back up the old record to a history table in case it needed to be reverted later on.