text: It's a fact of life that most people work for companies whose prime function is not to test software and fund software companies. Most companies see IT as a tool to do a job.
  There is a view that IT is the sewage pipes of the organisation. You want them to work, you don't want them to break but you don't want to see or touch them.
  For them what is the compelling need to upgrade beyond the technical? If there isn't a non-technical need can you communicate the technical need in such a way that the business community will say "hey wow, I demand an upgrade, here's your cheque"!
  I'm looking a systems that are running on SQL2000 and the only reason they are running on SQL2000 is because the SQL7 install disks were lost.
  From a business perspective the servers barely notice the load (8000 batch requests.sec) and the apps have run fine for years.
  Do I want to support SQL2000? Hell no!
  Do I want to be skilled up in the latest technology? Damn right I do!
  If I can go to a business user and say "by upgrading to SQL2008 Enterprise Edition" I can extend the life of the SAN by 3 years due to the benefits of the compression facility. This will save you $millions" then I am in with a chance.
  If I go to the business and say "by upgrading to SQL2008 (and beyond) you make my life easier)" it becomes a case of how much value they place on my time. What could they use me for if half my workload vanished? Would they have a use for me if half my workload vanished?:ermm:
  I've just come back from a SQL Server User Group raving about Stream Insight. It just so happens that Stream Insight answers a lot of questions that the business are asking. Maybe we'll go with an alternative vendor for CEP but maybe we won't and it will be a compelling argument for moving to SQL2008R2.