Windows 2008 RTM'd this week, which means that in a few weeks, at the February Launch event, there will be two products that are shipping and have RTM'd, leaving only SQL Server 2008 as a product that's not yet finished. And likely won't be for 6 months.

 Some people have wondered why I'm harping on this. After all, I was the one complaining fairly loudly about the 3 year cycle for database products. I'm not complaining it's been delayed. I think it's a good thing if two things happen:

1. Support for SQL Server 2000 gets extended

2. It gets removed from this launch event and gets it's own event later in the year, maybe at the PDC.

My complaint is that this is almost like vaporware. A fully feature complete CTP is supposed to be released, but who knows what will change before RTM. There are potentially new things coming in this CTP, which means they'll get large scale testing for the first time. Which means they might not be done in time for RTM, which I'm sure will be this year. Which means they could be vaporware! 

 My complaint is with the marketing side of things. They are giving SQL Server a bad name, which annoys me since I try hard to advocate it every day.