It's interesting to see this picture. Why? It's a slide from this PowerPoint-presentation, held by Microsoft at the launch of MS SQL Server (and Visual Studio 2005), yesterday.

What's wrong with it? It's a comparison of the number of transactions that an Oracle database and a MS SQL Server database can perform per minute, respectively. The bottom of the slide reads as follows.

TPC-C results referenced above are HP Integrity Superdome running SQL Server 2005, 1,082,203 tpmC, 5.38 $/tpmC, available 12/7/05, and HP Integrity Superdome running Oracle 10g, 1,008,144 tpmC, 8.33 $/tpmC, available 4/14/04.

Not only have Microsoft crunched these numbers using an Oracle-server in 2004-04-14, which means that at the time of said presentation that test was more than 19 months old, but the really interesting thing is that Microsoft have done their testing at 2005-12-07. They've gone into the future and tested their product.

I've always known Bill Gates had some sort of pact with the devil, but this is way too much.

Anyway: even if they haven't gone into the future, isn't it just too poor to compare your four-month-old product (that is, if they tested MS SQL Server at 2005-07-12) with a competitor's product that's 19 months old?