I've been reading some info on the next release of Team Foundation Server, codename "Rosario" (if anyone knows the origin of this please let me know) and aside from technological advancements an improvements there are some budget and platform considerations to think about as well.

For starters, TFS "Rosario" was considered not to support Windows Server 2003. But Microsoft had little to gain from this, and customers had a lot to loose. So, next versions of TFS after Rsario will drop support for Windows Server 2003, and mantain full support for Windows Server 2008 and future releases.

TFS "Rosario" will be supporting full 64-bit on the server. Rosario will support both 32-bit and 64-bit server operating systems to ease the upgrade transition, however, post Rosario we will drop 32-bit server support.

The biggest change in the next release is indeed the abandon of SQL Server 2005. This is primarily due to the new features and improvements of SQL Server 2008 regarding text-search indexing, index compression, improved Reporting Services and easier setup and administration.

Microsoft-certified virtualization enviroments will also be tested/supported. In the Sharepoint area, Windows Sharepoint Services 2.0 will be discontinued, while WSS 3.0 (2007 release) takes it's place. However, MOSS 2007 will have a better integration, providing a richer user interface experience.

 In the client area, all OS from windows XP forward will be supported, although it's natural that older OS's require some updates via service packs.

Project Server 2007 will also be supported, but not required, while Office 2007 get's the job, with the TFS team firing Office 2003 version, which will be discontinued. This was necessary to implement Undo in MS Project and "formula persistence" in MS Excel.

So it all ends up well for technology evolution, but might be a pain for consumers and businesses who'll loose support for their current platform setups. Future investments and requirement/cost ratio must be taken in to account.