Microsoft announces that its database software SQL Server will also run on Linux, expects full commercial release in 2017
Microsoft Opens Its Corporate Data Software to Linux — SAN FRANCISCO — For years, Microsoft built walls between its products and the rest of the industry.
Context & Ripple Effects
For years Microsoft kept its database software fenced inside Windows; the announcement that SQL Server would run on Linux is the wall coming down. The company had already been loosening up around open infrastructure — weeks later it put Docker Datacenter on Azure Marketplace and demoed SQL Server in a Linux container — and the 2016 GA of SQL Server 2016 with deep R integration showed the product being repositioned for data workloads beyond its traditional base.
First-order effects
- Linux shops that previously ruled out SQL Server on platform grounds become addressable customers, and the promised 2017 commercial release gives them a concrete migration window.
- Microsoft's own cloud benefits immediately: SQL Server on Linux makes the database portable into containerized and mixed-OS environments that Azure competes for against Linux-native rivals.
Second-order effects
- The bet lands on schedule — SQL Server 2017 ships on Linux, including in Docker containers, with Python support and graph processing added — which pressures Oracle and other proprietary database vendors whose lock-in partly rested on OS coupling.
- Microsoft follows the openness with managed-database breadth: joining the MariaDB Foundation and launching Azure Database for MariaDB, then updating Azure services for SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL together — meeting customers on whatever engine they run rather than forcing a switch.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, database choice decouples from operating system and from vendor: enterprises pick engines per workload while the cloud provider — here Microsoft, via Azure SQL and the SQL Server 2019 preview as 2008 support ends — monetizes the hosting layer instead of the license.
- That shift turns legacy end-of-support deadlines into forced-migration events that funnel customers toward managed cloud databases, restructuring the database market around subscription operations rather than perpetual licenses.
The trend: Enterprise software vendors are dismantling their own platform walls — SQL Server on Linux being an early case — because recurring cloud revenue beats license lock-in.