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Microsoft Plans SharePoint 2016 Preview Release for August

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The first preview release of SharePoint Server 2016 will arrive in August, Microsoft reportedly said on Thursday at its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC).

In a report for IT Unity, Microsoft MVP Dan Holme attributed the August timeframe to Seth Patton, senior director of product management for Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive, who was speaking at WPC.

At Microsoft's Ignite conference in May, Bill Baer, senior technical product manager and Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint, had said that the SharePoint Server 2016 preview would arrive "later this summer," although Microsoft's slides all indicated "Q4" arrival for the preview. Consequently, it appears that Microsoft has accelerated its preview release plans from the current schedule.

That acceleration, though, comes after Microsoft pushed back its earlier 2015 product release plans to Q2 2016.

According to Holme's report, SharePoint Server 2016's code was "complete" back in May at Ignite and the new server has been tested for months by participants in Microsoft's Technology Adopter Program. Holmes didn't expect an accelerated preview release to translate into a faster product release, though. Microsoft is just following its new agile approach to get customer feedback sooner, he suggested.

Microsoft's officially announced plans are still to release the SharePoint Server 2016 product sometime in the second quarter of 2016.

Holme plugged an upcoming IT Unity talk with Baer on Friday July 24 (sign-up here). He said that Baer will talk about Microsoft efforts to get the preview out the door during the talk.

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About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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