Over the next 12 months Microsoft have some major releases of their main applications. Many of these build up the elements of the Microsoft Learning Gateway.
Over the coming month we’ll have a look at the different products that are currently available for beta and a look at what is yet to come.
Here is a list of things that are coming from both the client and service side
Client
- Windows 7
- The new Microsoft operating system replacing Microsoft Vista. I’ve played with both the Beta version and RC and they are great. General release is on 22nd October but keep an eye open on the news for RTM and release to Volume Licensing.
- Office 2010
- The Technical Preview (beta 1) is currently out there for people who registered. I don’t know if everyone got a copy but I’m liking the custom ribbon on all the apps. I mainly use Outlook and I’m like the new features.
- No date yet for release
Server
- SharePoint 2010
- Being the main product in the Learning Gateway I am always looking for the latest news via twitter or on the newsgroup about SharePoint 2010. You can see a sneak preview of SharePoint 2010 over at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com. There are 3 videos at the moment, an overall view of SharePoint 2010, an IT Pro and an Dev video.
- If you do use twitter, I search for SharePoint 2010 but Microsoft recently said the official hashtag for SharePoint 2010 is #SP2010.
- Again no release date but if you want to know more information about SharePoint 2010 Microsoft say attend the Official Microsoft SharePoint Conference later in the year http://www.mssharepointconference.com/
- Exchange 2010
- Exchange 2010 went to Public Beta a few months ago and you can download this from http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/try-it.aspx . Not many people know that Exchange 2010 (codenamed Exchange 14) has been used by Microsoft for about 2 years now. Live@edu has over 2 million accounts that run Exchange 2010 and a lot of other Microsoft mail services available online are also Exchange 2010. This tell me that if Microsoft are prepared to use it externally to customers, the product is in a very good state in this first public beta
- TMG
- Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) is the next version of ISA 2006. ISA 2006 can’t be installed on Windows 2008 due to the changes in the security framework so Microsoft have replaced the product with TMG. http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/edgesecurity/isaserver/en/us/tmg-mbe-faq.aspx
- Office Communications Server 2007 R2
- Released in February 2009, Office Communications 2007 R2 increase the functionality of the original 2007 product with its phone system. I recently had a Microsoft employee in my office who made a call with his OCS and used the internet to connect to Microsoft HQ before then making the call externally.
- Office Web Apps
- The technology has been around for a while now with Google Apps but Microsoft made some major announcements at the World Partner Conference on the 13th July about Office Web Applications. Have a look here http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-13Office2010WPCPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases
- No release date yet
Over the coming weeks and months we’ll take a deeper look into each of these product and how they can be used from an education point of view and how they fit into the next version of the Microsoft Learning Gateway