In a very strategic move for Microsoft's enterprise goals, they have just announced the purchase of data warehouse appliance vendor Datallegro!

While Microsoft has significantly expanded SQL Server's scale over the past few years, the perception of its limitations has been somewhere below the "big guys" of Oracle and IBM. And, wherever you believe the scalability of SQL Server has grown to, now undoubtedly the scale of Microsoft solutions goes beyond 100 terabytes. This is the scale that many, myself included, believe accessible data management capabilities need to get to in order to manage the future of telecommunications, retail, healthcare and other transactions and make them available.

Look for Microsoft, and others like myself, to publish reference architectures and guidance on the changeover point from SQL Server to Datallegro (or should we start calling it Microsoft MPP?) as well as integration points.

I have found Microsoft's integration of its acquisitions to be very above average in terms of making the most of the acquired products. There are too many data appliances and Datallegro was caught up in this frenzy. It has found its way to be a long-term appliance play.

The open source DBMS that Datallegro was using, Ingres, will be scrapheaped over time and replaced by SQL Server. This will take some time, but Microsoft has that. Its customers now can see a plan in action and that will hold them over for a while. Many customers have settled into the "Microsoft zone" of pricing, which is more than open source (duh), but less than its big competitors. Look for Datallegro, likewise, to be in the low (but not "no") cost points for its capabilities.

Congratulations to the respective teams.