Misc

Roadmap Leaks for Microsoft Office 15, IE 10, etc.

April 12, 2012 , 0 Vlad Mazek

Microsoft has provided some of its partners with a roadmap for next versions of many of its key products, including Office 15, IE 10 and Windows Phone, and parts of that document have leaked to the Web. 

Below are a few screenshots that were leaked from the roadmap:

There are many takeaways that you can draw from the roadmap. Some key takeaways could be: the fact that Internet Explorer 10 could be released at any time, that the Office 15 wave of products doesn’t clearly specify RTM dates, Lync Server 15 is the only Office 15 product that is completely missing from the roadmap, and the fact that the Windows piece is very vague and nothing beyond the “Developer’s Preview” is even mentioned.  Most notably, it is important to point out that this roadmap was created in December of 2011.  While this was just a few months ago, in the technology world, dates, commitments, and deadlines change! Also, the principle of “under-promise/over-deliver” is usually heavily padded, and some of these anticipated targets may not be met as expected.

With the Service Provider model leaning more and more on the advisory portion of the role, staying ahead of the end user curve in technology becomes pivotal to our credibility. The one discussion you probably don’t want to find yourself in is one where the decision maker of a business knows more about a technology than you do. This roadmap that was released late last year so some points are outdated.  However, it at least gives us a good idea as to when to pay extra attention to Microsoft press releases. In fact, you can even use this to start dropping hints for possible migrations to clients that you know enjoy staying ahead of the curve, and for those that are more cost-conscious, you can even point out where those “irreplaceable” Windows XP machines will no longer be supported.

While the growth of mobility has taken a slight edge off the impact of Microsoft’s roadmap, Windows is still the king of the market share and we need to stay on top of when their products change. We probably don’t want to be the first ones to migrate a site to Office 15, but we definitely want to be aware and the sooner you can make plans, the better.