May 112007
Microsoft have recently announced the next version of SQL Server, codenamed Katmai and due for release in 2008. The press release is available here, and more information is available here.
I imagine the jump between 2005 and Katmai won’t be as great as the jump between 2000 and 2005 due to the shorter release cycle. Katmai looks to be more about adding power to data manipulation than adding major new features to the database engine (for example, CLR integration in 2005) .