Microsoft India was conferred the Growth Strategy Leadership Award for Database in Software and Security sector at the recently held '2007 Frost & Sullivan India ICT.

While presenting the award, Dr. T.R Madan Mohan, Director (Consulting), ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle said, "Microsoft's two pronged strategy of enabling Express license for developers and increased ISV product offerings in key verticals had a significant impact on SQL DB Market share. Microsoft SQL DB grew at an impressive 36% in 2006. Its technology advantage in the form of high-performance and scalability, as well as increased ISV support contributed to SQL growth in market share in the India. Banking (especially RRBs and Scheduled Banks), IT/ITES, Manufacturing, Retail and Healthcare were the key verticals for Microsoft SQL. Appropriate licensing options such as single user license, open user license, open value license helped MS SQL to reach out SOHO's and SMB across verticals. Its Select and Enterprise Agreement license terms reinforced the value for large enterprises."

According to Pallavi Kathuria, Director - Server Business Group, Microsoft India, "We are honoured to have received this recognition from Frost & Sullivan acknowledging the success achieved by Microsoft in the database market. This award is a great reiteration of the value that Microsoft SQL Server brings to the market, having matured into a robust, secure and scalable platform delivering mission critical solutions to customers across the world. We are now looking forward to announcing the launch of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, our next generation offering in this segment that will provide a trusted, productive and intelligent data platform enabling organisations to run their most demanding mission critical applications, reduce time and cost of development and management of applications."