System Center Service Manager 2010 Release Candidate Released!!

We released System Center Service Manager 2010 Release Candidate on schedule today! It is now available for our TAP and RDP customers (only) across the world and can be downloaded from http://connect.microsoft.com starting now.

This is the final milestone before RTM!  Please download the build if you are in TAP or RDP and let us know what you think.  Some of the improvements listed below (in bold) were added to the scope of the project in this milestone directly as a result of customer feedback.  Please keep the feedback coming!

Enhancements delivered since Beta 2 include:

• Upgrade and migration support for TAP customers
• Improved Performance, Scale and Stability
• Improved Notifications with batching email
• New Change Management Features

• Reviewer Notification
• Line Manager Approval

• New and Updated Reports
• Improved Self Service Software Provisioning
• Improved View Editing
• UX Improvements throughout the product
• Data Warehouse improvements
• Authoring Tool Improvements

• Extending and adding classes and relationships
• Support for controls in form customization
• Added workflow activities in activity library

• Localizability and Globalization bug fixes
• Supportability bug fixes
• Support for Disaster Recovery
• New versions of product documentation

A few important notes:

• An updated version of the Authoring Console will be released to TAP and RDP in about a week.
• Upgrade is supported only from Beta 2 Update + QFE to RC for TAP customers in production.  While there is no technical limitations here, only those customers are supported.
• RC to RTM upgrade will also only be supported for TAP customers in production.
• This milestone is an EN-US language only milestone.  Announcements about the availability of other languages will be announced soon.

Thank you to our customers and partners for the feedback on Connect , in the forums , and on the blog !