Tech•Ed: Microsoft Delivers New Wave of Technologies to Help Businesses Thrive in Today’s Economy

Microsoft Tech•Ed North America 2009 kicked off today with announcements of new technologies that enable IT professionals and developers to help their organizations save money and improve efficiencies during difficult economic times. As part of today’s news, Microsoft Corp. announced that the company is anticipating that the next version of its client operating system, Windows 7, will be available to customers in time for the holiday shopping season. In addition, Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate (RC) is available today with the final product releasing to market in the same timeframe as Windows 7.

The company also announced that SQL Server 2008 R2 (formerly SQL Server ‘Kilimanjaro’) will release the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) in the second half of 2009 and on track to ship SQL Server 2008 R2 in the first half of calendar year 2010, which will include new feature Master Data Services (MDS).

Please visit theGlobal Tech•Ed Virtual Press Room to view the full press release, as well as the keynote live at 10am PDT/1pm EDT and for a post keynote Q&A session that will be starting at 12:30pm PDT/3:30 EDT as well.