Microsoft has released a number of public betas. This includes Silverlight 4, which can now be downloaded from:
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/
Silverlight 4 is targeted for release next year. The first three versions of Silverlight were released within 22 months. Micorosft is on the same clip with Silverligth 4.
Also released are public betas of products such as Microsoft Office 2010, Project 2010, Visio, 2010, and SharePoint 2010. You can find more on these at:
http://www.microsoft.com/2010/en/
I predict a decrease in developer productivity today….