Microsoft Launches Preview Versions of Office 2016 and Skype for Business

As announced in January, Microsoft on Monday announced the release of IT Pro and Developer Preview version of Office 2016. The firm also announced the release of the technical preview of Skype for Business.

Microsoft says the Office 2016 IT Pro and Developer Preview still misses out on some of features and that consumers should look out for the final version of Office 2016, which will be shipping "later this year." Office 2016 has been available in private preview for a few months now, but has now been made available to commercial Office 365 customers.

The Redmond-based tech firm detailed some of the features included in the Office 2016 IT Pro and Developer Preview. It has added Data Loss Protection (DLP) classification and policies for Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. DLP was previously limited to Exchange, Outlook, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint services. As Microsoft explains, DLP allows IT admins to create and manage policies for content authoring and document sharing. As for end users, they will see policy tips or sharing restrictions whenever the policy is violated.

A number of technical improvements have also been made in the Outlook application found in the IT Pro and Developer Preview of Office 2016, namely multi-factor authentication, improved email delivery performance, lean storage footprint, improved search, foreground network calls, and the new MAPI-HTTP protocol. Also new with the Office 2016 preview are new deployment features for IT professionals, like better network traffic management, flexible update management, simplified activation management, and enhanced distribution management.

Other features included in the Office 2016 IT Pro and Developer preview are improved keyboard accessibility for certain Excel features, fixes for readability issues on Outlook, and a dark theme in Outlook for visually impaired users. Microsoft added that it made no changes in its Macros and Add-ins in this release. Information Rights Management (IRM) protection has also been extended to Visio files. More details on the features can viewed on the company's dedicated blog post.

Microsoft also announced the technical preview of Skype for Business, which is a replacement of Lync, an enterprise-centred service for communication that was acquired by Microsoft back in May 2011. For now, the Skype for Business Client Preview is only available for current Lync customers in the US, and will become generally available starting April this year.

Microsoft first announced Skype for Business in November last year stated that it would feature a new client, server release, and other updates to the service in Office 365. The firm in its blog post announcing the technical preview, stated that using the service, users can communicate with anyone including people inside or outside the organisation. The service is also built into Office and features functions like presence, IM, voice and video calls, and online meetings.

Detailing the migration process from Lync to Skype for Business, Microsoft added it has "seen a five-fold increase in partners deploying Lync in the cloud over the past year" and 80 percent of the channel have been trained on Skype for Business. The details on Skype for Business can be seen here.