Microsoft officials acknowledged on Monday that the releases of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 have slipped yet again. The updates are now slated to ship towards the end of the year. Such a delay was largely expected after the Beta 2 release of Visual Studio 2005 missed the VSLive! Conference in February.

Development of the new Visual Studio and SQL Server 2005, code-named "Whidbey" and "Yukon" respectively, has been fraught with delays. Microsoft originally planned for a 2004 launch, but moved the roadmap into early 2005 last year. As recent as January, Microsoft was stating Whidbey would ship by summertime.

Because of their interdependence, a delay in Whidbey translates to a delay in Yukon; both products are scheduled to ship concurrently. Some industry watchers also question how Longhorn and Office 12 will be affected by such development problems.

However, Joe Wilcox, senior analyst for Jupiter Research, noted that many of Microsoft's future products, including Longhorn, are now driven by Windows Server. "Right now, Windows Server 2003 development is pulling much of the major platform development work, including new SQL Server, Visual Studio and Windows client versions," he said.

"I would watch for greater alignment of major products -- either final releases or important betas -- around Windows Server 2003. First juncture would be 64-bit Windows versions synched with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. Second juncture would be Windows Server 2003 R2, SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and a major Longhorn beta," Wilcox added.

In order to tide over developers during the wait, Microsoft has issued numerous Technology Previews and on Monday announced pricing for Visual Studio 2005. Professional Edition will run $799 USD, or $549 USD for upgrades. Standard Edition is priced at $299 USD, with $199 for upgrades, while Express Edition costs just $49 USD.

Microsoft announced pricing and packaging details for SQL Server 2005 late last month.