Microsoft has announced that the long awaited successor to their RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) SQL Server will hit RTM mark this August. 
SQL Server 2008 was originally scheduled to ship with Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008 in this years HEROES launch event but since SQL Server 2008 wasnt ready for prime time in February, it was slipped to release in Q4 of 2008.
From Mary Jo Foley’s All About Microsoft:
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 a near final build i.e. SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 initially to testers than to public last month. You can download the SQL Server 2008 RC0 here.
Being one of Microsoft’s Heroes Community Launch Leader, I will be receiving a free complementary copy of SQL Server 2008 later this year. Cant wait to get my hands on it!
