VMware will announce to its Partner Channel the release of Workstation 5.5 later today, detailing that the product will be available for ordering from December.
Isn’t clear if this means Workstation 5.5 is RTM, but if so my guesses about released date linked to Microsoft Vista beta 2 release could be founded: since Microsoft delayed Vista beta 2 to early 2006, there’s no need to wait for Workstation 5.5 release. So it popped out.