It's Launch Day!

It's launch day at MS. SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 officially launch today. I'll be attending the Orland launch event in early December as MS does a roadshow throughout the country to promote both products. BizTalk is in there as well but won't actually be available until 2006. SQL Server is extremely relevant for GP users. GP 8.0 needs a service pack update to work with SQL Server 2005 but that should be out pretty soon. There are some great enhancements in SQL 2005. If MS can make the upgrade from 2000 to 2005 as seamless as so many 7.0 to 2000 upgrades were they will have hit a home run. Everything I've seen about SQL 2005 has been very positive.

VS 2005 is also relevant for reporting and add-on. I've heard a LOT of great things from developers running beta versions. Right at launch time, however, there seems to be some grumbling about whether they waited too long, released too early or got it juuuust right. We'll have to see what the consensus is in 6 months. There is always so much hype, positive from MS and negative from other camps that only time will tell how great both of these products are. Put down as pro-hype for SQL Server 2005.