Semiannual Cadence for Windows Server 2016

Brass Contributor

Why did Microsoft settle on a March-September release cycle for Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and Office 365 Pro Plus? Do customers tell Microsoft that they like the faster pace or do they say it's too disruptive?

 

1 Reply
Hi Kurt - We've found that there are customers on both ends of the spectrum (in terms of wanting to onboard new innovation very quickly vs. wanting to take more time). In fact, many organizations have found the need for both within their operations. For example, on the server side, they may want to continue to move forward their virtualization fabric at a faster pace (e.g. new scale limits, support for new HW advancements, etc.), but they may have applications running on that fabric that they don't want to move forward yet. We decided that doing 6 month releases, leading up to a next Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release would be the right balance. We're excited to hear from customers how they like the new approach.