Microsoft has just unveiled a road map -- future plans and changes -- for the Office 365, and is also offering Office 365 customers the chance to opt in to advance releases of new versions, throug the new 'First Release' program.
The Office 365 for business public roadmap provides users with a way to learn more about upcoming updates. It includes a few months’ view of new features, enhancements, and major updates.
The Office 365 for Business road map breaks announcements into four categories:
- - Launched Features: this road map curently lists 13 of them, from generic Top Level Domain admin settings to a minor Lync for Mac update to sign-in page branding for Office 365 users.
- Rolling Out Features: coming in the future. There are 10 listed, including the announcement for First Release for Office 365; browser reports for Office 365 admins; document conversations for OneDrive for business and SharePoint Online; MAPI over HTTP for Outlook 2013 and Exchange Online; OS and Browser User Reports for Office 365 and more.
- In Development: This list of 35 items. First on the list, Apps for Office for Excel Online, promises that "Excel Online will support adding Apps for Office similar to the Excel desktop client." There's Codename Oslo and Office Graph, Document Collaboration in Outlook Web App, Groups for Office 365, an increase in the limit of OneDrive for Business Storage to 1TB, customizing the Word Online ribbon, Card view in Outlook Web app, Office 365 video, Office Online in Yammer and many others.
- Cancelled: Features from In Development that did not make it to the final software.
The next version of Office is due to hit beta this summer.