Microsoft Reveals Office 365 for Business Roadmap and First Release Program

The Redmond giant on Thursday revealed its Office 365 for business roadmap to the public in an effort to provide information about upcoming updates beforehand.

Targeted at business and institutional customers, Microsoft on its website has divided the Office 365 for business roadmap in five categories: Launched, Rolling out, In Development, Cancelled, and Previous Releases. While it will provide details couple of months ahead about new features, enhancements, and major updates, Microsoft says that it will also provide information about updates that are further out, such as the new service Codenamed "Oslo" and the Office Graph.

Notably the Office 365 for business roadmap does not apply to Office 365 Home or Office 365 Personal.

"The Office 365 for business public roadmap provides you with a way to learn more about upcoming updates before the change comes to your service. It provides a few months' view of new features, enhancements, and major updates," noted Jake Zborowski, Group Product Manager, Microsoft.

In addition to the Office 365 for business roadmap, Microsoft also announced the roll out of a new program called First Release. Customers opting for the program will receive new feature updates first, ahead of customers in the standard release group that will get the new feature updates a minimum of two weeks after being made available for First Release.

As of now Microsoft has not included the updates like Lync Online, Exchange Online Protection, Office 365 ProPlus, or other related services in this program.