Well, it looks like the cat (meow) is
out of the bag. While still not official, this rumor has been floating around for quite some time and typically
Microsoft Watch gets these types of things right more often then they get them wrong (big picture-wise).
I don't track internally published ship schedules very often if at all since they change on a regular basis. MW says that mid-September is a likely ship time frame, and I would have to agree if for no other reason that it is awfully hard to hold a
Professional Developers Conference without shipping software. Of course, it is Visual Studio 2005, so December 31st, 2005 would not surprise me either.
Official Disclaimer: This is all provided as-is and by no means represents an official Microsoft position or statement. Random musings from a mushroom.