Analysts at Gartner were beating the same drum.
In a briefing posted on the Gartner Web site Wednesday, analysts Betsy Burton, Ted Friedman, and Bill Hostmann chimed in with a warning to SA subscribers.
"Customers paying for SA maintenance agreements during this protracted development, with the expectation of receiving functional value for their investment, will find that many of these SA agreements have lapsed before the product is released," the three said in the alert.
Microsoft has been facing increased resistance to its Software Assurance from companies tired of paying for the agreements, only to see products slip beyond the contracts' expiration dates. In late January, when Microsoft released its most recent financial figures, for instance, it noted a $1.1 billion "hole" going into its fiscal year 2005 due to declining deferred revenue. Software Assurance is one of the major contributors to Microsoft's deferred revenue stream.
Another problem caused by the slide of SQL Server 2005, said Wilcox, is that it significantly narrows the window between the end of support for the current version of SQL Server -- dubbed SQL Server 2000 -- and the upcoming upgrade.
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