It is official now - SQL Server 2005 is finally released. I am still trying to comprehend it, so far I am overwhelmed with all kinds of feelings. I kind of started to beleive that it is going to happen only at the beginning of September, when we pretty much stopped doing almost anything about Yukon and switched to SP1 work. Now our product begins its own life, outside of our labs. It is a little bit scary, but I do have full confidence, that it is going to succeed, and succeed in a big way. Starting November 7 there is going to be a wave of launch events all over the world. I felt honoured to be invited to so many of them - the most tempting ones were from Microsoft Russia to attend the launch event in Moscow (followed by Kiev). Since I left USSR 15 years ago - I haven't been back there, and I really wanted to go. Unfortunatelly, for personal reasons, I couldn't go (but two of my collegues and good friends - Sasha Berger and Irina Gorbach will be there). I am going to be in the San Francisco launch event though on November 7, so if you will be there - stop by Analysis Services booth and say hello to me and Rob Zare. Of course, we will answer any questions you might have at that time too. It also will be pretty interesting to compare that launch event to the one in Las Vegas in 1998 when we launched OLAP Services 7.0. Nobody knew what we were about, and the questions were at the level of "So what is that OLAP thing ?". I bet it is going to be very different this time !