After Microsoft's profit warning last week, Microsoft president Steve Ballmer wrote a memo to employees discussing cost cutting. It also had some interesting comments in it about "Yukon" which I though was the code name for the next version of SQL Server. Now I'm not sure what it is.
As far as Ive heard... the new .Net platform to be released in 2004 will be integrated with a number of microsofts .net servers.... Including SQL Server.
I think the idea is that administration & development should occur in one integrated environment!!!
I wouldnt worry too much about the semantics of it all. Microsoft uses .net (for example) to describe many things.