Free version of MS SQL Server

Microsoft announced a supercharged SQL Server 2005 today. But there will also be a stripped down free version. David Wilkinson, a fellow OPML blogger, was just saying the other day they ought to do that to compete with LAMP.

I don't work on the website every day anymore for my job, but when I did I pushed LAMP stuff whenever I could. I could install it myself without the help of real programmers, which meant I could fix it when there were problems. We also use SQL Server with Cold Fusion on the IIS server and I can't be nearly so self-sufficient with that setup, plus it just isn't reliable. I can't think of the last time we had to restart the Linux server because something was stuffed up. It might be years.

Later... No, wait a second. I didn't read that Microsoft story carefully enough. It's only a free trial. That's altogether different. I guess MS is a lot more interested in competing with Oracle than with the grassroots crowd. If B2B is the way they want to go, it seems like they ought to drop the live.com "For the People" rap. I don't really think you can do both and have your heart in either.