A Peek Inside the Microsoft ‘Whidbey’ Ship Room: “…

A Peek Inside the Microsoft 'Whidbey' Ship Room: "The flurry of activity behind the scenes at Microsoft is not without distinct purpose, officials point out. Outwardly, the company has said that while Visual Studio 2005 will deliver a second beta release, SQL Server 2005 will not see a third beta, opting instead for continued CTPs (community technology previews) of the software until it ships by year's end.

The shift in beta program plans, along with the furious development campaign within, is part of Microsoft's goal to deeply integrate Visual Studio 2005, also known as 'Whidbey,' with SQL Server 2005, known now as 'Yukon,' to give developers a seamless experience using the company's development tools to build and deploy database and other applications. It's this bottom-up integration effort that will bring users productivity gains and return on investment, Microsoft officials said. However, both products are late to market, and both are key to future core Microsoft products such as 'Longhorn' (Microsoft's next major Windows release) and Office 12."