Last week I was at the MVP Summit in Seattle and Redmond, mainly learning about "Katmai" - the next version of SQL Server - from the SQL Server development team. The details of Katmai aren't in the public domain yet but some of the key themes were named a year ago by Paul Flessner: Continuous Availability and Automation; Beyond Relational; End-To-End Insight.
One of the things that's obvious to everyone on the MVP programme is just how much effort Microsoft puts into listening to customers and acting on the feedback it receives. The MVP Summit is a fine example of that. It's an occasion when some of the leading lights of the SQL Server world outside Microsoft come together and share ideas with the people actually developing the product.
I hope I'll have more to say about Katmai in the future, as and when I'm able to talk about actual features. Meantime, there's more from the summit here:
http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/95547/sql_server_95547.html
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/2007/03-13MVPSummit.mspx