SQL Server 2005 will end Extended Support on 4/12/2016 (see the Support Lifecyle page for details) and the SQL Server Team in Microsoft is conducting a survey with customers to gain some insight that will help with development of the next version of SQL Server. I volunteered to host a public version of the survey on my blog, take responses from you, and forward them on to the relevant SQL Server Team members.

If you’d like to participate, please cut-and-paste the survey below and email me with your answers. I’ll pass them on, stripping out your contact details if you specify that.

I’ve made the survey into plain text to ease c&p issues. Please don’t put your answers in a comment, just send them in email. I’ll delete your email once I’ve processed it.

[Edit 9/18/14: Please don’t send any more answers – the SQL Server team has enough results. Thanks!]

Thanks!

Do you want to be anonymous?

Questions from the SQL Server Team:
1) Is your company still using SQL 2005 for applications in production?
   a) If so, how important are the apps (mission-critical, LOB, etc.)
   b) If so, which SKU (Express, Standard, Enterprise)?

2) In the following list of features, are you or your company still relying on them?
   a) SQL Mail
   b) CREATE/ALTER TABLE or CREATE INDEX syntax without parentheses around table options
   c) sp_configure options 'user instances enabled' and 'user instance timeout'
   d) SQL Server Database Management Objects (SQL-DMO)
   e) sp_dboption
   f) DATABASEPROPERTY
   g) UPDATE table1, table2, ... SET syntax
   h) Database compatibility level 80

3) Are there any features in SQL Server 2005 that has been announced deprecated that you still rely on?
   a) The deprecated features list is: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143729(v=sql.90).aspx

4) If you're looking to upgrade from SQL Server 2005:
   a) To which SQL Server version are you looking at upgrading to?
   b) What are the biggest upgrade blockers you see?

Many thanks for any information you can provide!