Microsoft to rev its ‘Microsoft 365’ marketing machine with a new roadmap
By mid-September, the Microsoft Office 365 public roadmap will be no more. It will be supplanted by the Microsoft 365 roadmap.
Microsoft revealed its plan last week in its Office 365 Message Center. From a message I (an Office 365 subscriber) received:
“In mid-September, the Office 365 Roadmap will become the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and will move to a new web location. In addition to retaining all the current information and functionality of the existing Office 365 Roadmap, the new site will include Microsoft 365 product features from Windows 10, Enterprise Mobility Suite, and Azure.”
Just a reminder: Microsoft 365 is Microsoft’s bundle of Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security which the company introduced a year ago.
The current Office 365 Roadmap lists updates that are planned for various subscribers. It lists some of the publicly disclosed Office features that have launched, are rolling out or in development and/or cancelled. At one point, Microsoft also had a public Windows 10 roadmap page for business-specific features, but I don’t think it exists any more.
With the new combined Microsoft 365 roadmap, users will be able to search across terms like “product,” “cloud instance” and “platform. The new roadmap will provide information on features listed, including whether it’s deploying in “Targeted Release,” preview, specialized cloud instances or worldwide. There will also be an RSS feed for the new combined roadmap.
As of mid-September, the existing Office 365 URL — https://products.office.com/business/office-365-roadmap — will be replaced with a new Microsoft 365 Roadmap URL (which Microsoft has not yet specified publicly).
This roadmap change shouldn’t be surprising to anyone keeping tabs on Microsoft. Via its latest corporate-wide reorg, Microsoft has moved part of the Windows, Devices and Intune management and teams under the former head of Office 365, Rajesh Jha, who now oversees Microsoft 365.
Even though customers still have the option to buy/license Windows, Office 365 and Intune separately, Microsoft is putting much of its marketing and sales efforts behind the Microsoft 365 bundle.
In other Office 365-related news, Microsoft also announced last week that it will be making enhanced anti-spoofing capabilities available to all Exchange Online Protection (EOP) users. Before, this capability was only available to E5 and Defender Advanced Threat Protection add-on users.
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