The Microsoft Connect site is the place where you can leave your feedback, suggestions, and wishes for Microsoft products. The most popular feature request for SQL Server is the one for JSON support. It was created in June 2011 and at the time of writing (October 2017) it has 1,138 votes. The request is still open, as you can see in the following screenshot, and you will see later in this chapter, why it still makes sense to have it in the active state:

What arguments are used by community members to justify the request? They are as follows:

• JSON is already standard, and it should be supported, similar to XML.
• Other vendors support it (Oracle, PostgreSQL, and others)
• Due to the lack of JSON support, my customers want to move from SQL Server to other database systems supporting JSON.

As always with vox populi (the opinions or beliefs of the majority), some of the arguments and given examples represent development and business needs. Some of them, however, are very personal, sometimes guided by passion. But there is one thing upon which they agree and which is common in almost all comments: a serious relational database management system should have significant support for JSON. Almost five years after the item was created, Microsoft added JSON support in SQL Server 2016.

Of course, the number of votes on the Microsoft Connect site is not the only reason for this feature. The other competitors (PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2, MySQL) have already introduced support for JSON; some of them, such as PostgreSQL, are very serious and robust. And if you want to still be a respectable vendor, you need to come up with JSON support.