What's up with SQL Server 2008 Express editions

Microsoft has announced the release of SQL Server 2008 and that means it time for another post about SQL Server Express. The press release indicated that SQL Express is already available, but those of you who have followed the link have found that it is not actually there. Nothing to worry about, has a dependency on the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and we need to coordinate the release to the web for both of these which will take a few more days. I'll blog about it when we release it and you can watch the Express web site for updates; when we release it, it will be available from that site. There will be three editions of SQL Express, each one adding to the functionality of the previous one; you simply pick the edition that includes the set of functionality you need and install it. The information I posted about SQL Express RC0 is still valid, but I'm reproducing the feature comparison table here to include the third edition: