I am a database user going back many years and have used several different platforms from the high-end (NCR's Teradata) down to MS Access. I work for a Marketing Service Provider and we do alot of Marketing Database building with associated reporting and analysis and also use SAS for statistical modelling and analysis. We also build Marketing Databases using SAS and a niche Marketing analysis tool called Alterian. I have recently led the way in a push towards using a middle tier (and cheaper) tool such as SQL server to carry out data processing and database building but as no-one else in the company has any experience, I am largely relying on what information I can gleam from the internet. I have worked out that as a company, for our needs we need to get the Standard Edition of the product (I can't see at this stage that the Enterprise version is necessary - comments welcome?) but as SQL Server 2008 is quite new I'm struggling to find anything that directly compares 2005 and 2008. It's obvious that there is a large community of 2005 users and experience/knowledge that has been published to the web which seems like a good reason to start with SQL 2005 but what I can't tell is if the functionality of 2008 is that more advanced, that it makes it worthwhile commiting us to the newer technology. Can anyone offer advice or point me in a helpful direction for comparative info?

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