Microsoft today confirmed the popular suspicion that Katmai, the next version of SQL Server, will ship in 2008. Feature details are currently sparse, but one interesting aspect is that Microsoft is acquiring SoftArtisans Inc.’s OfficeWriter for managed report authoring in Microsoft Office with Katmai. Microsoft’s Russell Christopher suggests that “this is a huge win for folks who want to render reports to Word and/or use the lighter-weight Excel rendering extension SoftArtisans has created.”
Update: Also mentioned was Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 which is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2007.