Steve Jones - Editor (2/23/2009)
I've asked about the a la carte versions of SQL, but I think MS avoids that to prevent a nightmare of support issues. Which features do you have when you call? I don't think it should be that big a deal to figure out. Automate it, right?Compression is one that stumps me as well. I think that it's a big selling push to get larger companies, who save more, to move to EE.
Yeah, the support issues for that would likely drive the price up. But by how much? Also would mean the various pieces would have to decouple easily, which may or may not be the case. Should be technically possible, but Microsoft doesn't seem to work that way.
Take Vista for example. You can't buy a "Basic Vista", and then tack on the extras that you want. Would be nice to have some of the features of Ultimate available as for-pay add-ons to Home Premium or Business, for example. But MS doesn't seem to want to work that way.
Office kind of works that way. You can buy a copy of Word, or you can buy a copy of Office that includes Word. Want Access? Buy a copy of Office Pro, or buy a lower-end copy of Office and buy Access separately, or just buy Access all by itself.
Might be clever if they did something similar for Windows, SQL Server, et al, but not sure if they ever will.
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