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SQL Server Notification Services Removed SQL 2008

Several years ago, Desktop Alert ( http://www.desktopalert.net ) had thought about using Microsoft SQL Notification Services. At the time it seemed entirely too limiting from a feature standpoint and quite frankly we did not feel comfortable building a business plan around a 3rd party product which could ultimately make or break us as a company.

Validation was delivered recently when we discovered that Microsoft is gutting SQL Server Notification Services from SQL Server 2008. PHEW!

Therefore, when selecting a mass notification platform make sure your organization is NOT committed to a costly solution only to then discover the systems core engine is being discontinued by Microsoft.

At this page:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/5/3/453739ed-cb74-46b1-b7af-f157ee71db20/ReadmeSQL2008.htm

You will read and this is there:

5.1 SQL Server Notification Services Removed from SQL Server 2008 Notification Services will not be included as a component of SQL Server 2008, but will continue to be supported as part of the SQL Server 2005 product support life-cycle. Moving forward, support for key notification scenarios will be incorporated into SQL Server Reporting Services. Existing Reporting Services functionality, such as data driven subscriptions, addresses some of the notification requirements. Features to support additional notification scenarios might be expected in future releases."
Mass Notification systems built on and around SQL Server Notification Services must now consider major re-writes of their alert engines. That's called "starting over" as the new engine must go through a proving process and gestation period that can take upwards of two or more years.

This is where Desktop Alert shines. Desktop Alert is autonomous to the Microsoft embedded notification technology approach. You can see by the example above where that kind of a business plan can really become a big headache.

Desktop Alert did not take a short cut and use somebody else's "desktop alert" piece.

We wrote our own "desktop alert" source code line-by-line over 5 years.

As such Desktop Alert has a firm grip and control over the company's destiny without any chance of externally imposed product discontinuations which ultimately bode poorly for both the vendor and the vendors clients. That is of course, unless Microsoft Windows itself is terminated.

In a word, Desktop Alert continues to improve on its engine while other systems must now remove the Wankel Engine and move towards a new engine, which is as of yet immature in the development life cycle at Microsoft.