When I was at TechEd this year, I was disappointed to hear the announcement that SQL 2005, VS.NET 2005 and BizTalk 2006 would all be released in the week of November 7.
I was dissappointed that it was so far off, but after talking with members close to the product team I now know I should be happy that the release date is 2005 and not 2006.
I recently was notified that the official date for release for SQL 2005 is November 8 - no longer a week long window. I have not heard about VS.NET and BizTalk, but I imagine they are the same day.