After the keynote of Eric Rudder, there was another one by Gord Mangione (who was assisted by Tom Rizzo) about SQL Server "Yukon" and the WinFS (part of Longhorn). Both seem to have some quite nifty features and use cases. For WinFS, I think we might need to get a bit acquainted to the possibilities: having all data accessible by using and querying properties sounds nice. It goes a  lot further than just indexing the data with Microsoft's Indexing Service.

In SQL Server "Yukon", it's quite nice use compiled managed code in the database server itself. And the fact that it mixes smoothly with T-SQL and XML (for example XQuery), not only for execution but also for debugging, makes it a great product.

Quite a remarkable notice for SQL Server Reporting Services should be made too. After Analysis Server, this might become a very handy part. It isn't even limited to SQL Server data, you can use any OLE DB, ODBC and ADO.NET supported database in the Reporting Services, like Oracle, ODBC databases, etc... Reports can be published in HTML, Word, XML, PDF, and so on. More info on Reporting Services can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/spotlight/reporting.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/default.asp. Definitely take a look at this...