Brent Ozar gives his tribute to SQL Server 2005:
I remember the first time I used SQL Server 2005.
I was a database administrator working on a new-build data warehouse project in Miami. Both our data warehouse and SQL Server 2005 were looking like they were going to come out at the same time, and I kept hoping I could make the timing work.
SQL Server 2005 looked so seductive. Let’s take just a moment to think back about all the cool new technologies it introduced:
SQL Server 2005 was, in my opinion, the first enterprise-quality version of SQL Server. 2000 was a great start but wasn’t quite there yet. This version, though, was quite nice.