A variety of factors are converging to create an information storage explosion. Enabled by new types of information, such as digitization of images and video, and sensor information from RFID tags, the amount of digital information within an organization is mushrooming. Growing regulatory compliance and globalization require that information be stored securely and available at all times. At the same time, the cost of disk storage has dramatically decreased, enabling organizations to store more data per dollar invested. Users must quickly sift through mountains of data to find relevant information. Furthermore, they want to use this information on any device and with the programs that they use every day, such as 2007 Microsoft® Office system applications. Managing this data explosion and the increase in user expectations creates numerous challenges for the enterprise. The Microsoft Data Platform vision helps meets these needs by providing a solution that organizations can use to store and manage many types of data, including XML, e-mail, time/calendar, file, document, and geospatial, while providing a rich set of services to interact with the data: search, query, data analysis, reporting, data integration, and robust synchronization. Users can access information from creation to archiving on virtually any device, from the desktop to a mobile device.

SQL Server 2008 delivers on Microsoft’s Data Platform vision by helping your organization manage any data, any place, any time. It enables you to store data from structured, semi-structured, and unstructured documents such as images, music, documents directly within the database. SQL Server 2008 delivers a rich set of integrated services that enable you to do more with your data such as query, search, synchronize, report and analyze. Your data can be stored and accessed in your largest servers within the Data Center all the way down to desktops and mobile devices, enabling you to have control over your data no matter where it is stored. SQL Server 2008 enables you to consume your data within custom applications developed using Microsoft® .NET and Visual Studio® and within your service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process through Microsoft® BizTalk® Server while information workers can access data directly in the tools they use everyday such as the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. SQL Server 2008 delivers a trusted, productive and intelligent data platform for all your data needs.