Embarcadero Technologies is pitting the latest major release of its data-modeling tool, ER/Studio, against Computer Associates' (CA's) PLATINUM ERwin/ERX, the current market leader for data-modeling tools. Data modelers can be very loyal to their tools, and ERwin, which has been around for more than a decade, is a high-quality product. Unseating ERwin as a market leader won't be easy. However, ERwin has problems with SQL Server 7.0 data types—problems severe enough that database designers modeling for SQL Server will want to look closely at an alternative such as ER/Studio.

ER/Studio is pa...