SQL Server 2008 July Community Technology Preview has been released. With SQL Server 2008 July CTP release, customers can immediately utilize new capabilities that support their mission-critical platform and enable pervasive insight across the enterprise. SQL Server 2008 lays the groundwork for innovative policy-based management that enables administrators to reduce their time spent on maintenance tasks. SQL Server 2008 provides enhancements in the SQL Server BI platform by enabling customers to provide up-to-date information with Change Data Capture and MERGE features, and develop highly scalable analysis services cubes with new development environments.
Download SQL Server 2008 CTP from here.
Read SQL Server 2008 Improvement Pillars here.
If you are using SQL Server 2005, I strongly suggest you upgrade to the latest version of SQL Server 2008 when it is released. The reason is simple that newer versions will have lots of new learning improvements and learning.
UPDATE: As we write this, now SQL Server 2016 is about to be released and lots of new features have been introduced into the product. I strongly suggest to try SQL Server 2016 or at least install the evaluation version of the same. SQL Server has indeed came a long way.
Reference : Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
