Microsoft to deliver SQL Server 2008 in August

The long wait for SQL Server 2008 is nearly over.

At its Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston on July 9, Bob Kelly, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Infrastructure Server Marketing, told attendees that SQL Server 2008 will be on the August price list. He said that Microsoft will keep pricing the same for the new release as it is for SQL Server 2005.

Microsoft released the near-final Release Candidate (RC) 0 test build of SQL Server 2008 in early June.

Microsoft officially “launched” SQL Server 2008 in February, alongside Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008. Earlier this year, Microsoft officials said they were planning to deliver SQL Server 2008 by mid-2008. Company officials changed their guidance a couple of months ago, noting that Microsoft was planning to deliver the final SQL Server 2008 release in the third calendar quarter of 2008.

Kelly also announced that Microsoft has released the near-final Release Candidate (RC) 1 test builds of its Windows Essential Business Server 2008 mid-market server bundle, as well as its Windows Small Business Server 2008 product. Microsoft will make the RC1 builds available for download from the Microsoft Connect site, officials said. The company is planning the official launch of these two servers for November 12; the actual final code will likely hit before that date.

Microsoft also is planning some kind of "official" virtualization launch event in Seattle on September 8, Kelly said, without offering more specifics. On July 8, Microsoft made its Hyper-V hypervisor available on Windows Update for download.