asp.net ajax RTM and Q4 2006 SP1

After reporting last week that the telerik Q4 2006 SP1 would be available this week, it appears that telerik has changed their plans. Many telerik developers have been expectantly waiting on the laundry list of fixes due this week, but "delays" in the official release of ASP.NET AJAX may be affecting the telerik schedule.

An unconfirmed rumor from an unnamed source in Microsoft suggested that the ASP.NET AJAX team wanted to release the RTM this Thursday, but last minute quality issues stalled the release. Steve Marx, an ASP.NET AJAX Evangelist from Microsoft, further confirmed for me yesterday that the ASP.NET AJAX release is "quality driven, not date driven", so it will be out when it is good and ready.

Then a tip from the ASP.NET forums lead me to the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Codeplex site, which has finally shed some light on the ASP.NET AJAX RTM release date. According to that site, the first production release of the Control Toolkit will occur on January 23rd to "coincide with the ASP.NET AJAX release". Could this comment have slipped the RTM date into the wild? It would appear so.

There has been no word from the telerik team regarding an official delay in the Service Pack that was previously slated for this week, but my guess is we're going to have to wait for ASP.NET AJAX RTM before we SP1 hits the streets. At least we now know that won't be too much longer.