Today, Soma announced that VS2005 Release Candidate (RC1) will ship in early September.  He also announced that Team Foundation Server (TFS) will have a Beta3 and that TFS will not RTM until Q1 2006.  (RTM is Release-To-Manufacturing, i.e. the official shipping version.)

Whenever a RC is announced, this is a sign that we are getting close to opening this year's new presents - just like the thrill at Christmas time!  Microsoft has been getting slapped for these dates slipping, but this shows that VS will come out this year.  Until this point, we really did not know.  Let's just hope that there are no major issues to be found.

And for me, I'm much more interested the next Beta or RC.  While I'm glad that Microsoft is sharing their work more often, I personally prefer the milestone releases that include stability.

It's unfortunate that TFS will be late - but it's much more important that it work correctly and efficiently.  Soma has some positive statements about supporting TFS Beta3 (including a Go Live license) and the ability to migrate into the RTM.

So, this years season of .NET gifts are definitely on the way!