Why migrate from Microsoft SQL to MySQL? Often times a client with an expensive eCommerce application hosted on a pricey Windows server, will learn about Joomla and Virtuemart and want to migrate his website to inexpensive Linux hosting.  After all, times are tough, so why throw away good money if you're not getting any advantage with the extra expense?

But most web professionals don't know how to migrate Microsoft SQL databases to MySQL, meaning that the client will have to manually re-enter all his product and customer info, or pay a developer to write scripts to set things up from an Excel data file, etc.

Surprisingly, according to posts I've seen while Googling this topic, even large hosting companies like GoDaddy, can't help with SQL migration from .bak files to MySQL or even other Windows servers with MS SQL databases!

Migrations from Windows servers to Linux servers often occur huge expense and investment in time, which means the move may take years to pay off.  So, imagine my client's surprise when he learned that our promise of a free website move for customers hosting on our servers, includes free migration from MS SQL to MySQL database! (Any altering of the data or database structure to match the needs of new applications, is billable though.)

Some data fields cannot be easily migrated, such as where a credit card field has been encrypted and the client is no longer on good terms with his former developer.  In such cases, if the key is not obvious in the code, those data fields cannot be migrated.  But that still leaves ninety-nine percent of the data that can be successfully migrated, saving a ton of money and / or time.  And it's not that big a deal for customers to have to re-enter credit card info when making a purchase.

So, if you're thinking about moving off of that expensive Windows web server and needing to migrate from MS SQL to MySQL databases, then you need to talk to me.