Tim Anderson's ITWriting

December 10, 2004

VS 2005 and .NET 2.0 - September 2005, but too long delayed?

The rumour is that Visual Studio 2005 will be released at the Microsoft PDC (Professional Developers Conference) September 13 - 16, 2005. I guess the gold version may still appear earlier, at least for MSDN download, but it looks like we now have a latest date for the final release of this long-awaited update. I imagine the same applies to SQL Server 2005.

I'm looking forward to this release, but I do think Microsoft has lost some momemtum with these lengthy delays. Bearing in mind that .NET 1.1 was really a maintenance release, that means we will have waited nearly four years for a major update. In the case of SQL Server, over five years. That's given competitors a long time to play catch-up - I'm thinking of Java vs .NET, and Oracle and DB2 vs SQL Server. From Microsoft's point of view, I believe the problem is excessive integration. SQL Server hosts .NET 2.0, so these two releases have to go hand-in-hand; ASP.NET depends on both, and so on. It must be like marshalling a group of unruly schoolchildren; the bus can't leave until everyone is on board. Still, I reckon it really will leave this time around; there comes a point where further delays are no longer an option. However, I reckon Microsoft should work on coupling these technolologies more loosely, so that its products can better keep pace with the market.