Microsoft to release SQL Server version for Linux

Microsoft said yesterday that it planned to release a version of SQL Server, one of its most successful business-software products, for the Linux operating system. The database software had been only available for Microsoft's Windows for decades.

According to commentators, the move marked a shift in thinking at the company, whose leaders once harshly criticised Linux and the open-source development model, which allowed companies to modify and freely use the software.

''The prison walls have been breached, and the inmates are going to start coming out,'' said Al Gillen, who tracks business technology as a group vice president with researcher IDC, seattletimes.com reported. ''If Microsoft is willing to port one of their most loved products onto a foreign operating system like Linux, I think the door is open for anything to move.''

Microsoft, had all along been trying to push developers and business customers to proprietary, Windows-based tools, but the strategy came a cropper in recent  years with Microsoft's tiny presence in smartphones, the popularity of Linux-based business tools, and the trend away from out-of-the-box software to programs accessed via the web.

According to commentators, under chief executive, Satya Nadella, Microsoft had been looking at ways to meet customers wherever they were.
 
Nearly a quarter of all the servers running in Microsoft's Azure cloud service are powered by the open source operating system Linux, but not much Microsoft software runs on Linux servers.

However, that would change, with companies being able to run Microsoft's database software SQL Server on Linux, according to a blog post by Microsoft's Scott Guthrie.

According to a spokesperson, Microsoft would offer at least SQL Server's core capabilities, while the availability of other components would depend on customer demand and feedback.

Microsoft was not open sourcing SQL Server's code but would make it possible to run on Linux which was a big change for the company. Microsoft had long offered a Mac version of its Office suite and had recently released versions for Android and iOS. For pretty much everything else, users need to run Windows if they wanted to use Microsoft software.

Only a limited number of Microsoft applications run on Linux today, and these were acquired from other companies, such as Skype, Revolution R Enterprise, and Wunderlist.

Though Microsoft is now warming up to Linux, back in 2001, former CEO Steve Ballmer had famously called Linux a ''cancer,'' and in 2007, Microsoft had threatened to sue Linux companies such as Red Hat for patent infringement.