An opportunity to speak with Sabrena McBride, Senior Product Manager for SQL Server, provided a lot of insight into what's new in R2. Some of the highlights: Among other things, SQL Server 2008 R2 is ...

SQL Server 2008 R2, which ships this month, allows end users to tap into the powerful business intelligence features of SQL Server via tight integration with popular Microsoft applications like Excel.

While SQL Server 2008 was little more than a service-pack level upgrade, the 2012 version of Microsoft’s database has a boatload of new features and delivers solid performance improvements.