There has been at least one artfully constructed hoax article relating to the demise of support for MS SQL 2000. The following Microsoft links clarify the situation. To sum up: there will be extended support until 2013. Extended support means security updates. If there is one more service pack, then a year after that service pack release, which ever is later.
How does this affect AvaPA? AvaPA runs on MSSQL 2000, MSSQL 2005 and MSSQL 2008 is in testing. AvaPA will be updated to implement features available in MSSQL 2008. If you are an existing customer and we have not already contacted you, then this can be achieved at a no cost option.
See: SQL Server 2000 Support Lifecycle
The following link indicates that security updates are continued through the “Extended Support Phase”, which for SQL Server 2000 is April 9th, 2013.
Microsoft Service Pack Support