>>As one example, Microsoft created the first pure columnstore index (all other implementations were hybrids) and made it updateable - this has been a game-changer. DW queries can run over 10x faster. That's huge...They've also implemented a 2nd generation data warehouse appliance scaling out to petabytes. (And finally, case studies are coming in)...And even though I'm not an Oracle fan, they've done things with in-memory OLTP engines that have also increased performance exponentially...I understand the point about hobbyist developers and their perceptions - but the strides made in data warehousing technology the last 5 years have been huge. And yes, I'm eating my words on Apache Hadoop - I underestimated open source.

So the car can go faster. Cool. That's like saying that control over IV infusions is more granular. Yep, I can see how that might be useful. But is that it?