Yukon, Whidbey Releases Slip Yet Again

The wait for the long-awaited Yukon and Whidbey is going to be longer still, eWEEK.com has learned.

Microsoft Corp. Director of Product Management for SQL Server Tom Rizzo confirmed that Microsoft expects to ship both Yukon—Microsofts code name for the next major update of its SQL Server database—and Whidbey—the coming update of Visual Studio—in the first half of 2005. In the meantime, a third beta has been added to the current beta schedule of Yukon, with 15 beta customers from across all major vertical industries signing up to run Yukon Beta 3 live in production settings before giving the thumbs up for Microsoft to make the product generally available.

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Rizzo also confirmed that rumors about the final names for the products, gleaned from leaked screenshots, are correct: The final name for Yukon is SQL Server 2005, and the final name for Whidbey is Visual Studio 2005. According to Rizzo, both products are on the same timeframe for shipping for a key reason: Namely, Microsoft wants to release the best of its developer tools with the best of its database technology "to really change the industry," he said. "If you look at Oracle [Corp.] and IBM and other competitors in the open-source space, they dont have releases where new and innovative tools are released with a new and innovative database. Customers want that: the next generation of tools that exploit the next generation of database technology."

This is the latest in a series of major delays for Yukon, a build that Microsoft has been constructing for years. The companys first references to the update were in October 2000. Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., originally cited spring 2004 as the ship date. Blaming .Net integration issues, Microsoft in June 2003 pushed the ship date until the second half of 2004.

To read about Yukons integration issues and its earlier delay, click here.

These major delays have been sprinkled with minor delays: Yukon Beta 1 was originally promised for the first half of 2003 but didnt come out until October 2003. And so far, say testers, theres no sign yet of Beta 2.

Next page: Did unfocused development priorities cause the delay?