His "Windows 2008 stack experience" looks like it could end up being more painful than we (or at least some of us) envisaged.

Of all the MS products, I have loved SQL Server the most. It has been a loyal and faithful servant for many, many years.

Most sites still seem to stick with SQL2000 and for a very good reason - for the first time since Microsoft bought this product from Sybase, the last release, SQL2005, was noticeably poorer in many ways than it's predecessor. Overall performance was down, system requirements were up (what should be known as the Vista dividend) and the only significant benefit seemed to be the introduction of a new language technology that pretty much no SQL expert wanted to touch with a 20 Metre cattle-prod. The new Workbench is so shockingly piss-poor, I instantly hate any site that forces me to use it.

Get a grip MS. Don't kill the goose by stuffing it with .NET badness.

In the extra time you've now got - bring back Query Analyser.

Paris? 'cos she looks like she enjoys a good inner join.

Dear oh dear "much easier to work with", "nicely integrated"...I use Management Studio every day and every day I curse its hopeless clunky interface where it takes 3 clicks to do what used to be possible with one.

To be fair EM had it's faults (like randomly shutting down ever so often), but QA was a nice tool that did a simple job and did it well.

Change for the sake of change, and not well thought out IMHO.