Microsoft has announced that more than 450,000 downloads have been recorded, to date, of the newly-launched version of SQL Server 2008.

Speaking in Malaysia during the TechEd event in Kuala Lumpur, which attracted more than 3,200 participants, Microsoft Asia Pacific general manager, Server & Tools, Chris Sharp, said that the database management system provides new capabilities. These include support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data, and advanced reporting and analysis services, including help organizations with BI needs.

Sharp said that, with the strong growth in partner downloads of SQL Server 2008's Community Technology Previews (CTPs), more than 75 large-scale applications already in production and some 1350 applications being developed by nearly 1000 ISVs on SQL Server 2008, customers and partners are excited about the capabilities now available in SQL Server 2008.

SQL Server is a key component of Microsoft's Application Platform, a suite of products and technologies designed to help customers build, run and manage dynamic business applications.

Research company Forrester's Noel Yuhanna said: "Microsoft is [one of] the only vendor[s] with top enterprise search and business intelligence reporting capabilities. It offers strong support for aggregation, summarization, search engine and dashboards. Transactions across distributed data sources and long-running transactions are also strengths for Microsoft."

Analyst firm Gartner's "Market Share: Business Intelligence Platform Software, Asia Pacific and Japan, 2007 report, said that Microsoft leads the market with 20.13 percent market share, growing by 25.5 percent to reach US$68.4 million in BI software revenues in Asia Pacific. The company also doubled its revenues over the previous year in Vietnam, and leads the BI industry in Malaysia with more than 40 percent in software revenues, compared to its nearest competitor.

IDC's recent report on Worldwide Relational Database Management Systems revenues revealed Microsoft was leading the pack in terms of year-on-year growth.