SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 release dates

As announced officially here, Microsoft are going to launch SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 on 12th May 2010. RTM (Release to Manufacturing) is planned for April 2010. This is great news. Here’s some of the highlights on the SharePoint 2010 side of what to expect in the new product from a developer perspective:

• Integration for Visual Studio 2010
• Can installed on Windows 7 (64 bit), no longer requires a server build
• Sandboxed solutions
• Silverlight integration out of the box (support for Silverlight web parts)
• BDC has been renamed BCS (Business Connectivity Services) and is greatly improved
• LINQ for SharePoint – strongly typed queries against lists anyone?

Head on over to http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com to find out more.