On Monday at Tech?Ed 2010 we announced new stuff (I like new stuff) that “showcases our continued commitment to deliver value, flexibility and control of data through data cloud services to our customers”.

Ok, that does sound like marketing speak (and it is) but the good news is there is some meat behind it. We have some decent new features coming and we also have some clarity on when we will be able to get our hands on those features.

SQL Azure Business Edition Extends to 50 GB – June 28th

• SQL Azure Business Edition database is now extending from 10GB to 50GB
• The new 50GB database size will be available worldwide starting June 28th

SQL Azure Business Edition Subscription Offer – August 1st

• Starting August 1st, we will have a new discounted SQL Azure promotional offer (SQL Azure Development Accelerator Core)
• More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/.

Public Preview of the Data Sync Service  - CTP now

• Data Sync Service for SQL Azure allows for more flexible control over data by deciding which data components should be distributed across multiple datacenters in different geographic locations, based on your internal policies and business needs. 
• Available as a community technology preview after registering at http://www.sqlazurelabs.com

SQL Server Web Manager for SQL Azure - CTP this Summer

• SQL Server Web Manager (SSWM) is a lightweight and easy to use database management tool for SQL Azure databases, to be offered this summer.

Access 10 Support for SQL Azure – available now

• Yey – at last! Microsoft Office 2010 will natively support data connectivity to SQL Azure – we can now start developing those “departmental apps” with the confidence of a highly available SQL store provisioned in seconds.
• NB: I don’t believe we will support any previous versions of Access talking to SQL Azure.

The Pre-announced Spatial Data Support to Become Live – Live now*

• At MIX in March we announced spatial was coming and apparently it is now here - although I need to check.

Related Links

• UK based? Sign up at http://ukazure.ning.com
• SQL Azure Team Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/