The release of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 on November 7 is going to be one of the big events in IT this year. And for Microsoft, it will likely be their biggest IT event until Longhorn … er, I mean Vista, is released next year.

A lot of IT pros are going to want to get educated on these new platforms in the coming months. I recently found a series of free online training courses on Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 from Microsoft E-Learning. I’m definitely planning to take a few of those courses. They would normally be $99 online courses. MSFT is offering them for free if you enroll before November 1. This includes free materials and even some virtual lab time, in some cases.