Just found out that the beta for the upcoming Visual Studio 2010 will be available to the general public on Wednesday 20th May.

If you have access to a MSDN subscription (MSDNAA should suffice) then it will be available on Monday 18th May.

More information about Visual Studio 2010

More details with links will be posted closer to the release date.

(Source: Jihad Dannawi (MS AU))