First published on CloudBlogs on Jun 30, 2016
Right now history is in the making! We are currently amidst the fastest customer upgrade cycle ever seen in the history of ConfigMgr’s enormous install base!  In just a little over 6 months, 15,000 organizations managing 27 million devices have upgraded to System Center ConfigMgr version 1511 or later.  In the 13 years I’ve led the engineering efforts on ConfigMgr, this is the highest the interest and energy around ConfigMgr has ever been! The adoption rate is nothing short of incredible, but there’s another metric that is even more impressive:  There has not been any increase in the number of support incidents reaching our support organization!  Not only are 1511 and 1602 widely and enthusiastically adopted – they are also incredibly stable and reliable!  Taken together, these two factors make our latest release a win for IT teams everywhere.

Why is the interest so high?

Right now there are a couple major migration trends underway in the market, and ConfigMgr is right in the middle of them.  This presence is what’s fueling the incredible level of interest in these new releases.  The factors include:

• Windows 10 is a hit! Just about every organization I meet with is either already underway or proactively building a plan to deploy Windows 10. Organizations love the security features of Windows 10.  Yesterday, we posted an overview of just how important Windows 10’s enhanced security features are in protecting against the sophisticated modern (and relentless!) attacks.  Users love the 2-in-1 devices (Surface and SurfaceBook being the premier examples). ConfigMgr is the tool that’s being used to manage this upgrade to Windows 10.  Here are couple of interesting data points we’re seeing: 91% of the 15,000 ConfigMgr 1511 or 1602 deployments are managing Windows 10 devices. 70% of all the Windows 10 devices we’re seeing were upgraded/deployed after the customer upgraded ConfigMgr to 1511 or 1602.  In other words, the pattern we’re seeing is that organizations upgrade to ConfigMgr Current Branch and then begin accelerating their Windows 10 deployments.
• Office 365 is a hit! It goes without saying that Office is the standard in productivity. A new capability in ConfigMgr Current Branch that you may not be aware of is the ability to update all of the Office click-to-run apps.  As organizations move to the modern versions of Office and use the click-to-run apps, they want to be able to manage the updates to those click-to-run apps.  Organizations think holistically when they consider updating their devices and apps – ConfigMgr Current Branch is the best and recommended way to do this.
• Mobile First! Cloud First! Organizations are really embracing mobility and they want a single pane of glass to manage all their devices. Most organizations will need to be able to manage Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 traditional, Windows 10 MDM, iOS, Mac, and Android devices.  That is a lot to take into account under one roof – and ConfigMgr is unique in its ability to deliver this.  Of the 15,000 customers that have upgraded to CurrentBranch, more than 2,500 are using the ConfigMgr console in the hybrid ConfigMgr-Intune configuration to manage all their mobile devices.  To learn more about Microsoft’s deep commitment to supporting iOS and Android, check out this new post .
• Rapid innovation for continuous value! Remember that we “ SaaSified ” ConfigMgr with this release – aka turned it into a service that is constantly getting updates from the cloud. We are now doing monthly updates to ConfigMgr that organizations who want to see what’s coming out next can deploy.  The Current Branch is updated 3-4 times a year.  With this new servicing model, we are able to rapidly innovate and deliver improvements and new functionality.  These types of improvements can range from exposing the management of new capabilities that have been released in Windows 10, exposing new capabilities that have been added into Intune for EMM, performance optimizations or improved end-user experiences with a converged end-user portal and enhanced notifications – just to name a few.

To put this in perspective, here’s some of the data from I see in my PowerBI dashboard every day (I love PowerBI!). First, you can see that the rate at which organizations are upgrading to ConfigMgr Current Branch is steep and consistent.  We consistently see more than 500 customers upgrade each week to ConfigMgr Current Branch. Also, more than 2 out of 3 customers are already on 1602.  In fact, we saw 50% of the 1511 base move to 1602 within 45 days . 1606 is now in preview !  The update from 1511 to 1602 was pretty simple, and the update to 1606 has been improved and is even simpler . We’ve also seen a pretty consistent rate of growth in the number of devices being managed through ConfigMgr Current Branch.  There are now over 1M new devices being added each week . Customers of all sizes are upgrading to ConfigMgr Current Branch.  This is a chart of some of our largest customers showing the number of devices being managed.             Here you can see the rate at which Windows devices are coming into ConfigMgr Current Branch.  The rate at which Windows 10 devices are being deployed is massively accelerating.

If you have been waiting to upgrade, there is no need to wait any longer.  You can be confident that ConfigMgr Current Branch is ready no matter the size of your company.