"Other companies talk about features that are like Excel; we talk about Excel," he said in a keynote speech at the conference, which was attended by 3,000.

These "people-ready" BI features will also be available in the next release.

Elop also said that companies using Microsoft's stack will find it much cheaper and easier to implement. "Some vendors have made the decision during these hard economic times to start cranking up prices," he said. "Well, doggone it, there's something wrong with that."

Officially , SQL Server 2008 has been deployed by 80 companies, said Tom Casey, Microsoft general manager for SQL Server business intelligence, during a presentation. The free version has been downloaded 500,000 times, he said.

SQL Server, along with Oracle Database, has long been dogged by accusations that its technology was unsuitable for their systems using lower-cost PC servers hooked up in massively parallel networks.