Not sure if this is a great answer, but many COTS solutions have chosen it as the only DBMS they support for one thing. Also, purchasing SQL Server does not ju

Not sure if this is a great answer, but many COTS solutions have chosen it as the only DBMS they support for one thing. Also, purchasing SQL Server does not just get you a DBMS, but several serviceable business intelligence tools. SQL Server integration, analysis and reporting services. Analysis services allows users to look at data in various ways and is integrated with everyday MS tools like Excel so to me that in particular seems like a unique offering. I do not know about scaling issues and all that, because I deal with a small deployment for an internally used ERP system. Edit: I would also say I'm stuck in SQL Server 2008 land. The reporting in 2016 looks amazing.