Microsoft cuts SQL Azure prices

Microsoft has lowered the price of its SQL Azure database platform in an attempt to lure more customers to the cloud-based system.

Microsoft has also released a new 100MB database option, which it said provides the full range of features at half the previous price.

The technology giant said that it will allow customers to get 48 per cent to 75 per cent savings for databases that are larger than 1GB.

"Today's price reductions and new entry-level database option are the result of both customer feedback and evolving usage patterns," Steven Martin, general manager for Windows Azure business planning, wrote in a blog.

Martin added that two usage patterns for the product have emerged in the past 18 months. First, that many projects begin on a small scale but are required to quickly grow in size.

Martin said to promote this pattern, Microsoft is "passing along better economies of scale and options for larger deployments. As [a customer's] database grows, the price per GB will decline significantly".

The second usage pattern is that many cloud adopters and customers with smaller workloads want a cheaper option for modest usage and Martin said that this was a reason for the release of the 100MB database option.