Microsoft SQL Server Turns 10 "Microsoft SQL Server has come a long way from its early beginnings on the Windows NT® platform. In 1993, 2,000 corporate sites were engaged in beta testing of SQL Server 1.0. Today, 40 percent of the relational database management systems on the Windows platform run SQL Server. Since the release of SQL Server 7.0 in 1998, Microsoft has outpaced the industry in integrated database technology, providing innovative features such as self-tuning; self-management; built-in Online Analytical Processing (OLAP); and extract, transform, load (ETL) and data warehousing capabilities. In addition, Microsoft added data mining into SQL Server 2000. These business intelligence (BI) features, included at no extra charge, offer an integrated data management and analysis platform. With the built-in BI features in SQL Server 2000, customers at all levels of an organization, from the mailroom to the boardroom, can increase productivity through the ability to have real-time insight into their data."