Microsoft is expected to announce future shipping dates and technical details for a variety of business servers this week at its annual TechEd conference. A pleasant but minor surprise: SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 will probably ship this fall, not at the very end of 2005 or in early 2006, as many experts had predicted. BizTalk Server 2006 is also due soon as is a preview version of Commerce Server 2006. And, as usual, expect Steve Ballmer to enthusiastically talk about security and to ask customers and developers for their patience.

For more about the TechEd agenda:
- see this Microsoft Watch article
- check out this News.com article

ALSO: Is Linux adoption stalling? Article