With Microsoft SQL Server 2005, the collection of statistics techniques and machine learning algorithms generically known as data mining is brought up to a new level. The most important change is that, in SQL Server 2005, data mining changes its target audience. Besides being a scientific lab instrument, addressing a limited number of highly skilled individuals, SQL Server Data Mining now gains ubiquity as a handy tool for developers, ready to be used in a wide range of applications. Most applications, from spreadsheets to Internet games, from peer-to-peer communication systems to application servers, share one common characteristic: they have to process data. In doing this, they use certain standard APIs for accessing data. With SQL Server 2005 Data Mining, the same kind of APIs can be used to embed machine intelligence in the data processing systems.