Windows 10 on its way!

According to Paul Thurrott, of Thurrott.com, Windows 10 is due to reach RTM this week.  Which is good news for the suggested late July release date.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/4481/windows-10-rtm-is-reportedly-imminent

What does RTM mean?
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/47323f15-c0e1-4b26-bb24-9fb84ffd7d75/what-do-the-letters-rtm-means-as-they-are-used-like-windows-me-rtm-cd-or-windows-7-rtm?forum=w7itproinstall

Announcing preview of new Skype for Business services in Office 365

Announcing preview of new Skype for Business services in Office 365: When Microsoft launched Skype for Business earlier this year, we said we’d deliver new Skype for Business voice and meetings capabilities in Office 365 that will enhance the existing Skype for Business experience, and allow us to offer a complete, enterprise-grade communications solution at global scale as part of Office 365. We’re pleased to announce technical previews starting today: Skype Meeting Broadcast, PSTN Conferencing and Cloud PBX with PSTN Calling.

Office 365 with RDS (Remote Desktop Services)

If you are running an RDS environment for remote application delivery or remote desktop sessions, and you are looking to deploy Office 365 with the full Office suite, you may be confused regarding the correct licensing path.

To cut to the chase, The Office 365 Business suites, are not for you.

With Office 365 licensing, to use Office in RDS it must support Shared Activation. 

As you can see below, only the E3 and E4 plans support Shared Activation: 

Taken from: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office-applications-service-description.aspx

In Summary 

To use Office 365 in an RDS environment, you need to purchase E3 or E4 licenses for these specific users.

Remember, only the RDS users need to have Enterprise licenses.  The new Office 365 plans allow you to mix and match between license plans.  So you can still buy Business plan licenses for non-RDS users.

Office 2016 Preview—update

Office 2016 Preview—update: When Microsoft launched the Office 2016 Preview in early May, they said that they would share regular updates on new features as they became available. Here’s a quick update on what has been delivered in the last month.

An early look at Cortana integration with Office 365

An early look at Cortana integration with Office 365

Skype for Business great potential

This is a really interesting post and video showing the potential for Skype for Business

http://blogs.office.com/2015/03/18/skype-for-business-is-here-and-this-is-only-the-beginning/

Worth a watch.

Microsoft Office 2016 IT Pro and Developer Preview

IT Pro and Developer Preview of Office 2016 for the Windows desktop is here.

This is the first step in the journey towards general availability later this year.

The preview is available to commercial Office 365 customers, and includes significant technical improvements to Data Loss Protection, Outlook, and Click-to-Run Deployment, as well as improved Accessibility across the suite, and Information Rights Management Protection extended to Visio files. 

To learn more and download the preview, IT Pros and Developers should visit the Office 2016 Preview Program on the Microsoft Connect site.

The Office 2016 on-premises Preview program has very limited availability and is still under NDA, so should be offered to customers on a reactive basis only. Visit http://aka.ms/joinoffice for more information.