Microsoft was openly hostile towards Linux for many years, with former CEO Steve Ballmer famously saying, Linux is a cancer. This hostility was understandable, when we consider that Windows was its main source of income for Microsoft and Linux was the direct.

Over the last few years, Microsoft has diversified its product palette, especially their cloud services. Then, in 2014, Microsoft open sourced the .NET Framework, something that couldn't have been expected during Steve Ballmer's tenure. Even with this development, the announcement that SQL Server would run on Linux came as a shock and seemingly out of nowhere.

The idea behind this move is to allow anyone to install and use SQL Server, regardless of the operating system that is being used. This is already being offered with containers, in that the container process can run on Linux or Windows, interchangeably. Where SQL Server on Linux differs is that the SQL Server instance is installed as a service, rather than as a virtual machine or container.

A full-fat operating system allows for full control over all parameters of the system, it also enables a company to use existing knowledge and skills to run the entire stack. Naturally, a traditional rival to Microsoft in this space has been Oracle, which has been able to run on Linux for a long time. This move by Microsoft will allow companies that have used Oracle in the past to be able to consider SQL Server as an alternative. The pricing of SQL Server is certainly very competitive when both products are compared—the removal of the operating system hurdle will now allow companies to ask the question: is SQL Server a product we can use?