ENTERTAINMENT

Borland Software Corporation and Microsoft Corp. today announced an agreement to ship Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition with Borland C#Builder for the Microsoft .NET Framework. As part of the agreement, Microsoft will create a Borland page that is accessible via the SQL Server Web site where developers can obtain information about Borland C#Builder. The page is currently scheduled to go live in July. Also this summer, the two companies are planning to jointly host a series of seminars designed to show customers the benefits of the two products. "This agreement is good news for developers, and brings together technology solutions that will help enterprises build and deploy high-performance, cost-effective database applications quickly and efficiently," said Stan Sorensen, director of product management for SQL Server at Microsoft. "Both Microsoft and Borland are working toward our complementary goals of providing enterprises with solutions that leverage the benefits of the Microsoft .NET Framework." An integrated development environment for the C# programming language, the newly announced Borland C#Builder is designed for heterogeneous enterprise environments, supporting database choice and flexibility. C#Builder provides a design-driven development paradigm for rapid application maintenance and integral support for connecting to back-end software infrastructures. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is a complete data platform for application development. With SQL Server, developers can use one development framework for relational, XML, and OLAP applications. This single development environment provides faster and more efficient development and debugging to deliver custom applications quickly. Companies of all sizes can gain a competitive advantage by providing data access and analysis to employees at all levels. SQL Server-based applications support record-breaking numbers of concurrent users while efficiently processing and analyzing complex data. "Our ongoing relationship with Microsoft is further proof of our commitment to provide solutions that drive development of enterprise database applications for the Microsoft .NET Framework," said Simon Thornhill, vice president and general manager of .NET solutions for Borland. "With this agreement to include SQL Server with C#Builder, we are helping enterprise development teams to improve productivity and deliver better software, faster."