Why haven't I updated the build list for SQL Server 2008 with SP1? Read on...

Today I got a press release from Microsoft announcing that Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 was available. It was late in the afternoon, I was getting ready to schedule the newsletter, and so I immediately clicked on the link. My default browser, Firefox, popped to the SQL Server 2008 SP1 CTP page.

Hmmm, I was thinking perhaps a problem refreshing with an update, so I F5'd a few times, and then got annoyed. I sent a note back to the PR person that the link was broken, and then went to the Data Platform Insider blog, the place where lots of official SQL Server news gets released.

There was a link there to the download page for Microsoft, so I followed that and checked the "New Downloads" page. Sure enough, the link was there, I clicked that, got the download page, and looked for the release notes. Clicking that link got me a 404 error. Same for the README.

At this point I think something is wrong. So I try IE 7. There I click the link for the notes and get a Live Search error. The page can't be found. Why there is a Live Search when the page isn't available is beyond me. That's just annoying.

I refresh a few times, monitor Twitter, see a few more people are having issues as well. Someone even speculates that the SP got pulled for issues. I'd believe that, but there's no sign right now that's the case.

I have the KB number, so I search for that article. Not found. I think take another KB article, change the article ID and get a 404.

I get two more emails from the PR people at Microsoft, one with a new link (the main downloads page, not even the SP1 page) and another saying that the servers are syncing up and they should be working shortly.

After about 10-15 minutes, I give up. I've had enough messing around with this, and even though I might work too much at times, I need to schedule this newsletter and go cook dinner for kids. I'm basically done working for now and need to schedule the newsletter.

So the build list won't get updated until tomorrow when I have good links and I'm sure everything is working.

Who cares about SP1 being released today? Not a lot of people. Most people need to test the final release, they don't have a schedule necessarily, and whether they download SP1 today or next week it doesn't matter.

However there are some of us, journalists like me, consultants, MVPs, writers, that need to test ASAP against SP1 to keep work moving forward. Or people that have the CTP running on systems and want to move to the RTM version of SP1.

In other words, very good customers for SQL Server PR. These are the people that influence others, that Microsoft would presumably want to please. Yet a number of these people are exactly who got annoyed today with an announcement and pages not working.

Microsoft does some things very well, but this is just dumb. There is no purpose in waiting until the last minute to update the Microsoft web site when you have an announcement coming. What harm is there if they released SP1 to their web site, gave all the servers time to sync up with the download pages, verify everything is working, and then send out a press release tomorrow?

Does anyone think that the delay of a day of SP1 affects SQL Server sales or adoption? Heck, plenty of people would notice the download on a page, push it out through blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The people that really care would know hours ahead of others.

Microsoft has a chance to get an easy win, let a few people "break" the news early, and then they make an official announcement later.  Instead they either tried to time things too tightly or the PR people jumped the gun. In any case, a little delay would have made this process smoother.