I have just had an interesting off-line conversation with SQL Server MVP Chuck Boyce about Google Gears. If you read the blurb:
Google Gears (BETA) is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality
and includes the ability to
Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
We started to wonder whether Microsoft would ever come out with a product to compete with Google Gears and if it did, would it include a version of SQL Server Compact Edition (CE)? SQL Server CE will start to proliferate on the Windows platform in the coming months and years. Already it is being used by Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta (its not a public beta yet so I can't link to it) and it will be bundled along with SQL Server 2008 to provide capabilities that aren't currently present (don't ask me what - I'm sworn to secrecy). At its core SQL Server CE is nothing more than 9 .DLL files with a disk footprint of no more than 2MB (get all the SQL Server CE info you need from here) which is very small and easily distributable.
We already know that Silverlight will, in the future, contain other technologies such as Photosynth and I theorised that SQL Server CE might one day be bundled along with it as well thus allowing similar offline capability that Google Gears allows. Well you know what that would mean don't you? Silverlight is cross-platform and if Microsoft were ever to do this it would mean that SQL Server CE would become the first version of SQL Server that runs cross-platform as well. That's a very interesting, possibly very compelling, story about where Microsoft, Silverlight and SQL Server might be headed in the future.
If Silverlight ever has SQL Server CE bundled along with it just remember where you read about it first! :)
Chuck passes comment here too.
One other twist to the tale. One of the main architects of Google Gears is Danny Thorpe. Danny has done the previously unthinkable and moved from Google to Microsoft and is now a big hitter in Microsoft's Online Services division.
-Jamie