SharePoint 2016 Release is Q2 of 2016

Last week, the Microsoft Office Team announced the general availability date of the SharePoint 2016 server to be in Q2 2016, and the beta version should be available later in Q4 2015. This is a change of a previous anticipated date of the RTM in Q4 2015, however the product team hints about the new features of the SharePoint 2016 servers and what the product will offer in the vNext.

Just to be clear here, that Q2 2016 is the calendar 2016 year and not Microsoft’s 2016 fiscal year that starts July 1st, 2015.

We can have many predictions or assumptions why this push of the release date to the spring of 2016, but all we know that the product team has given us some high level headlines of what’s coming up next year:

1. Improved User Experiences to enhance:
   1. Mobile Experiences;
   2. Personalized Insights; and
   3. People-Centric File Storage and Collaboration.
2. Cloud-Inspired Infrastructure that includes:
   1. Improved Performance and Reliability;
   2. Hybrid Cloud with Global Reach; and
   3. Support and Monitoring Tools.
3. Compliance and Reporting to offer:
   1. New Data Protection and Migration Tools;
   2. Improved Reporting and Analytics; and
   3. Trusted Platform.

You can refer to the product team blog for a brief explanation of the new and enhanced experiences with SharePoint 2016.

Also, there is a Technology Adoption Program (TAP), available for organization to get enrolled in. The TAP program allows companies to have early access to the SharePoint product that gives partners number of advantages, such as providing input and feedback for future releases of SharePoint; developing a close relationship with the product teams; and receiving Pre-Release information about SharePoint.

We should know more about the SharePoint 2016 server at the Microsoft Ignite conference in Chicago from May 02-08, 2015.

More info to share in the upcoming weeks.