Robert Hurlbut, an independent software consultant in Worcester, Mass., said SQL Server 2005's security features are a big improvement over what was in the previous release of the database, especially for government users and companies in the health care and financial services industries. Microsoft has "locked down the ports and turned things on automatically that you used to have to do by hand," Hurlbut said.

DesignMind Inc., a software development firm in Oakland, Calif., has been using "a narrow set" of SQL Server 2005's features in live applications for several months, said Mark Ginnebaugh, the firm's president and head of the San Francisco SQL Server User Group.

Now DesignMind is moving forward on more extensive projects, such as using SQL Server 2005 to set up a large data mart for one client, Ginnebaugh said. Doing that on top of the client's existing DB2 database "would have been far more costly and difficult," he added.