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Windows Intune Beta 2 Program Is Full

It appears that the Windows Intune Beta 2 was pretty popular.

In a blog post this week, Alex Heaton, group product manager for Windows Intune, announced that Microsoft is no longer accepting new users for the Windows Intune testing program, which entered the Beta 2 phase on July 12.

Windows Intune is a cloud-based version of the desktop management capabilities customers could previously get by deploying Microsoft System Center technologies. Microsoft is positioning the product as both an end-user focused tool for midsize organizations' IT departments and as a tool for managed services providers to use to manage and secure their customers' environments. We covered the issues and potential surrounding the product's viability as an MSP tool in the September issue.

"Current beta participants can continue to use the Windows Intune beta and provide feedback until the next release," Heaton wrote in his blog. "We expect Windows Intune to be generally available in 2011."

Those interested in notifications of future Windows Intune releases can sign up here.

So how popular has Intune been? Microsoft opened the first beta on April 19 and filled the 1,000 tester slots in less than 24 hours. The company expanded the scope of the second beta to 10,000 testers and opened the registration from North American-only to include several European countries. Presumably, Microsoft has now filled those 10,000 slots.

Microsoft hasn't said how many of the testers are IT end users and how many are partners, taking advantage of features like the MSP-focused Multi-Account Console that was introduced in the Beta 2 phase.

Do you hold one of the coveted Beta 2 spots? I'd like to hear about your experiences with the Beta 2 of Windows Intune at [email protected].

Posted by Scott Bekker on September 23, 2010


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