Windows CE became even more tightly integrated into the corporate infrastructure this week with the release of SQL Server for CE.
It had always seemed odd that companies such as Oracle and Sybase had database engines for Windows CE, and yet Microsoft was severely underrepresented on their own operating system! Well, with last week's announcement of SQL Server for Windows CE, that all changed.
SQL Server (pronounced "sequel server") is a high-end database server product offered by Microsoft. It competes directly with other big names like Oracle's 8i, IBM's DB2, and Sybase's SQL Anywhere. SQL Server for CE differs from Pocket Access and even other high-end database offerings in the CE space in a number of ways.
First and foremost, SQL Server for CE (and all of the related development tools) are free if you're already licensing SQL Server.
Second, SQL Server is already familiar territory to many developers. This means that the transition from desktop to CE should be extremely easy. (If you've ever tried to work with some of the other
database-engine offerings for CE, you know just how important this is; many of them feel incomplete and clunky at best.)
Also of interest is the fact that SQL Server for CE is designed to do all of its synchronization via a Web server. As most organizations are already running some kind of Web server, this means there's just one less thing to administrate when it comes to CE.
But perhaps the most interesting feature of all is SQL Server for CE's ability to operate on data that's been synchronized with the device or talk to the backend SQL Server directly without the need to cache the data on the device! This means that you can literally have access to live data
directly on your CE device with no additional expense. (Of course, it's worth pointing out that there is already a 3rd party tool (Via DB) specifically optimized to provide live access to any backend database, which has existed since the days of CE 2.0.)
All in all, SQL Server for CE should lead to some very exciting corporate applications in the next 6-12 months.
A note about URLs
We received a number of letters from those of you who were frustrated when attempting to order the eMbedded Visual Tools mentioned in our last column. While we do our best to make sure that everything's current, some
of the URLs we publish change by the time you receive your copy of the magazine. While we certainly apologize for the confusion and share your sense of frustration, please note that all of the Microsoft-related URLs should always be just a few links away from the main Windows CE page at
www.microsoft.com/mobile.
Pocket Access - for light data access, with the data mostly confined to the device, synching with a desktop machine on a semi-regular basis.
Via DB (www.viadb.com) - for live, real-time access to back-end databases with no or little data stored on the device and a constant, usually wireless connection to a network or the Internet.
SQL Server for CE (wwwmicrosoft.com/sql) - for heavy data access, either cached or live, with the data being synched to a server on a regular, frequent basis.
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