Gamo said he wasn't particularly concerned about the length of time Microsoft spent before it was ready to release upgrades to SQL Server 2000 or Visual Studio, but he believed "it was about time for Microsoft to come up with a replacement" for the earlier versions.

In general, he said, he thinks the results have been worth the wait in terms of providing valuable new tools for developers, such as code life-cycle management tools.

"Now I just want to test it and drive it for myself" to see how well it really works, he said.

Tensoft Inc., a Microsoft Gold certified partner and a developer of specialized supply chain management and ERP (enterprise resource planning) software for the microprocessor manufacturing industry, also plans to upgrade to the 2005 server products, said Sandeep Madduri, a business analyst with the company.

The SQL Server 2005 reporting services will be particular valuable for the products that Tensoft develops for its customers, which are "fabless" chip manufacturers that outsource their actual chip production to overseas manufacturers, Madduri said.

Major enterprises also attended the event to discuss how they were deploying SQL Server 2005.

Giant book retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. is deploying SQL Server 2005 to track sales and inventory at its 821 retail stores to improve business intelligence and inventory planning, said CIO Chris Troia. He was one of five corporate IT executives who participated Monday in a Microsoft-organized SQL Server 2005 user panel.

Barnes & Noble had been a large Microsoft customer for years but mainly for small, departmental applications, he said. However, the company decided to examine the possibility of basing the company's main sales data warehouse on SQL Server.

"Some people thought we were crazy," Troia said. But the company did a proof-of-concept pilot application with Microsoft and was convinced that SQL Server was capable of providing the performance required to support the application.

The bookseller has built a 3TB data warehouse that stores three years of transaction data that will soon grow to a five-year running tally. As result, the data warehouse can track daily transactions and inventory to give Barnes & Nobel analysts and buyers accurate sales and inventory reports every morning.

"Now we are able to do real rates of sales based on what is in stock" and the previous days sales, Troia said, adding that this allows the company to do more accurate out-of-stock predictions as the basis for placing new orders with publishers.

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.