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Update for Microsoft Product Roadmap 2024

The 2023 Microsoft Product Roadmap

Microsoft has a lot in the docket for 2022, including new products like SQL Server 2022, Exchange Subscription Edition and Visual Studio 2022 for Mac.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

Recently Updated: SQL Server 2022 (9/30), Windows 11 (9/21), .NET 7 (9/14)

Windows 11 (UPDATED: 9/21) Released Microsoft Teams: Mesh, Teams Connect and Loop (UPDATED: 7/19) Expected release: Throughout 2022 Microsoft Defender for Business (UPDATED: 5/3) Released Dynamics 365 (UPDATED: 5/6) Release Wave 1: Released Release Wave 2: October 2022 SQL Server 2022 (UPDATED: 9/30) Expected release: TBA Exchange Server Subscription Edition (UPDATED: 6/3) Expected release: 2025 Skype for Business Server Subscription Edition (UPDATED: 8/17) Expected release: TBA System Center 2022 (UPDATED: 4/4) Released PowerShell 7.3 Expected release: 2022 Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition Released Visual Studio 2022 for Mac (UPDATED: 4/26) Expected release: First half of 2022 .NET MAUI (UPDATED: 5/24) Released .NET 7 (UPDATED: 9/14) Expected release: November 2022 Roadmap Archives 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011

Windows 11

Released

UPDATES Sept. 21: Windows 11 22H2 is released.

July 28: The first preview build of Windows 10 version 22H2 is now available.

July 14: The next major Windows 11 release will arrive in 2024 as part of a new three-year release cadence according to a Windows Central report.

July 6: Microsoft says it has created two distinct testing paths for its next preview versions of Windows 11.

June 7: Microsoft issues a preview of Windows 11, version 22H2.

May 11: Preview build 25115 of Windows 11 is released to Insiders.

March 18: Test build 22579 of Windows 11 is released to Insiders.

March 9: Windows 11 test build 22572 is released to Insiders.

Jan. 27: Windows 11 Insider preview build 22543 is released.

Jan. 26: Microsoft hints that the Windows 11 free upgrade offer may end sooner than expected. • A preview of Android apps on Windows 11 is released, with a public preview expected in February.

Jan. 24: The next major Windows 11 feature update is reportedly nearing the end of the testing phase, according to Neowin.

Jan. 18: Microsoft launches Windows 11 devices for education.

Jan. 12: Windows 11 preview build 22533 is released.

Jan. 6: Windows 11 preview build 22526 is released. In a departure, Microsoft's current flagship client OS will only receive one feature update per year (called the “General Availability Channel”), instead of the twice-yearly updates normalized by Windows 10. These once-a-year feature update releases will have “24 months of support for Home or Pro editions, and 36 months of support for Enterprise and Education editions,” according to Microsoft.

In making that change with Windows 11, Microsoft acknowledged some IT pros' grumblings that biannual Windows 10 feature update releases were just too frequent. The once-per-year Windows 11 feature updates also promise to be less disruptive for end users. Microsoft uses artificial intelligence to gauge machine readiness for feature updates, and also tracks a user's active hours to optimize update deliveries. Windows 11 advances from Windows 10 with a rounded corners design change, plus more stringent security hardware requirements. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Microsoft Teams: Mesh, Teams Connect and Loop

Expected release: Throughout 2022

UPDATES July 19: Microsoft Teams Connect is now generally available. Microsoft Teams is in everything, and everything is in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft has taken pains over the past few years to make the collaboration platform inextricable from much of its product stack, greatly expanding its usability. Out of the many components within Teams, there are a few standout features and capabilities that are expected to hit major milestones in 2022.

Mesh for Microsoft Teams, first announced at Ignite in November, is at the forefront of Microsoft's “metaverse” play. In a nutshell, Mesh for Microsoft Teams promises to deliver new options for digital collaboration that include personalized avatars and 3-D environments. Microsoft plans to issue a preview of Mesh for Teams sometime in the first half of 2022, with general availability to follow later in the year.

Teams Connect, currently in private preview, is also expected to launch in 2022. Teams Connect will let organizations use Teams with other organizations, bringing capabilities such as chat, as well as document sharing and real-time coauthoring, plus online meetings, via a “shared channel.”

Microsoft Loop has already been released to Microsoft 365 “commercial customers” using Teams, though Microsoft plans to update it over 2022 with new features. Touted by CEO Satya Nadella as “the next big breakthrough in Microsoft 365,” Loop delivers little applications within Teams, letting users create notes, task lists and tables on the fly, which can be messaged to collaborative team members. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Microsoft Defender for Business

Released

UPDATES May 2: The standalone edition of Microsoft Defender for Business is released. Microsoft's portfolio of “Defender”-labeled security products underwent yet another major rebrand last November, during the Ignite event. Amid the myriad announcements of new names for old products, Microsoft also debuted a brand-new solution called Microsoft Defender for Business.

Currently in preview, Microsoft Defender for Business is a security solution for SMBs that may lack a full-blown or deeply experienced IT department. It's designed to thwart malware and ransomware via antivirus and endpoint detection and response capabilities, protecting devices running Android, iOS, macOS and Windows operating systems. MSP partners can manage it using Microsoft 365 Lighthouse.

While Microsoft Defender for Business is a new product, it'll be included in the subscriptions of current Microsoft 365 Business Premium users when commercially released (presumably sometime in 2022, though Microsoft hasn't confirmed that yet). The product is not exactly free, though, as Microsoft is planning to increase the price of those subscriptions by $2 on March 1, 2022. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Dynamics 365

Release Wave 1:Released Release Wave 2: October 2022

UPDATES: May 6: Microsoft publishes its Release Wave 2 plans. Early access will happen on Aug. 2, with general availability on Oct. 1.

April 1: Release Wave 1 becomes generally available.

Jan. 26: Microsoft publishes its plans for Release Wave 1. Once again, Microsoft is expected to update Dynamics 365 via two “release waves,” one in the spring and one in the fall. The timeline for Release Wave 1, according to Microsoft, is as follows:

Jan. 25: Release plans published Jan. 31: Early access program begins April 1: General availability The Release Wave 1 period will extend from April to September. As of this writing, the exact dates for Release Wave 2 haven't been released. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

SQL Server 2022

Expected release: TBA

UPDATES Sept. 29: Microsoft releases RC1 of SQL Server 2022.

Aug. 26: SQL Server 2022 Release Candidate (RC) 0 is released.

May 24: Microsoft releases the public preview of SQL Server 2022 at Build.

April 11: Microsoft says a public preview of SQL Server 2022 will arrive by midyear. SQL Server 2022 reached the private preview stage back in November and there's been no recently announced product advance or updated plans announced since that time.

The new product is bringing various Azure support enhancements, but Microsoft also added improvements to the core database engine. As noted by Microsoft MVP Joey D'Antoni, SQL Server 2022 will be capable of near-zero-downtime migrations to Azure SQL Managed Instance. More importantly, an added database restore capability will permit organizations to move back to on-premises SQL Server.

The Query Store feature in SQL Server 2022 is getting a write capability for readable secondary databases in Always On availability groups. It will permit the tracking of query activities in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database secondaries. Query execution is expected to improve with a maximum degree of parallelism (MaxDOP) enhancement that better optimizes row scanning. Query speed improvements that overcome suboptimal parameters are also part of the product plans.

Support for Kerberos authentication is getting added to the product. It'll help developers who had based their products on Active Directory for identity management. “One of the headaches faced by Azure SQL Managed Instance customers was that they had to switch their client applications from connecting with traditional Active Directory connections, which used Kerberos, to using Azure Active Directory authentication, which relied on more protocols like OAuth and SAML,” D'Antoni explained. The added Kerberos support in SQL Server 2022 is expected ease such transitions. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Exchange Server Subscription Edition

Expected release: 2025

UPDATES June 2: The subscription-only release of Exchange Server has been delayed to 2025, according to Microsoft. Microsoft first described its plan to release subscription-based editions for its application server products in the fall of 2020. The idea is that customers install these servers on their own hardware, then pay Microsoft an annual or monthly subscription fee to use it. Since that initial announcement, Microsoft has released subscription editions of SharePoint Server and Project Server.

The subscription edition of Exchange Server is presumably forthcoming in 2022 (along with the subscription edition of Skype for Business Server), but Microsoft has said little about its release plans so far. However, in a statement to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, a Microsoft spokesperson said, “We're finalizing plans for our other on-premises server products, and we'll share the details in 2022.” [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Skype for Business Server Subscription Edition

Expected release: TBA

UPDATES Aug. 15: Microsoft indicates it is still currently assessing customer demand for subscription-only Skype for Business Server. Microsoft first described its plan to release subscription-based editions for its application server products in the fall of 2020. The idea is that customers install these servers on their own hardware, then pay Microsoft an annual or monthly subscription fee to use it. Since that initial announcement, Microsoft has released subscription editions of SharePoint Server and Project Server.

The subscription edition of Skype for Business Server is presumably forthcoming in 2022 (along with the subscription edition of Exchange Server), but Microsoft has said little about its release plans so far. However, in a statement to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, a Microsoft spokesperson said, “We're finalizing plans for our other on-premises server products, and we'll share the details in 2022.” [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

System Center 2022

Released

UPDATES April 1: System Center 2022 becomes generally available. Microsoft first described the next version release of System Center during a promotional event for Windows Server 2022 last September. Microsoft has a free browser-based Windows Admin Center management product, but System Center is still billed by Microsoft as its top suite of tools for managing enterprise-grade workloads that have a need to scale. New features coming to System Center 2022, as reported in this September RCP article, were described by Microsoft as follows:

System Center Operations Manager will have integration with Microsoft Teams to receive alerts and mitigate issues. System Center Operations Manager will get custom roles to be defined by users. Data Protection Manager users will have a folder-level restore for VM backups with recovery points. Parallel restoring will be available for multiple VMware VMs managed by a vCenter instance. Since then, Microsoft has stated that System Center 2022 will become available in the spring of 2022. Aside from the aforementioned features, Microsoft also plans to deliver “new hybrid capabilities” to the product and add “support for Azure Stack HCI 21H2 and VMware 7.0 hosts,” among others. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

PowerShell 7.3

Expected release: 2022

The last stable release of the PowerShell scripting solution, version 7.2, was only just released in November, but Microsoft is already at work on its successor. Preview 1 of PowerShell 7.3 has been available since December, and Microsoft has said additional details about the release will come in the first quarter.

PowerShell 7.2 was notable for its integration with .NET 6, a pivotal release for Microsoft because it represents the transformation of the traditional Windows-only .NET Framework into a more open (and open source) developer product. Similarly, according to Microsoft, the forthcoming PowerShell 7.3 will be “built on .NET 6.0.” [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition

Released

UPDATES Nov. 8: Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition is downloadable from the Azure Gallery. The Datacenter, Standard and Essentials editions of Windows Server 2022 all reached general availability in September, but the Datacenter: Azure Edition (or simply the Azure Edition) is still in public preview, and has been since last summer. As of this writing, Microsoft hasn't indicated when this product will exit public preview and become generally available, but presumably it'll be sometime in 2022.

Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition is limited to running on either Azure virtual machines or on the Azure Stack HCI on-premises product. However, it does have some notable features, according to this RCP article:

Hot-patching, an in-memory process that dispenses with restarts and reboots. It's an Azure Automanage feature that requires using Server Core. SMB over QUIC, described as a secure “alternative to the TCP network transport” providing VPN support for telecommuters and mobile users. Azure Extended Networking for moving apps to the cloud that need to maintain the same IP addresses. It preserves “on-premises private IP addresses, when migrating into Azure.” A Microsoft table comparing the different Windows Server 2022 editions shows that the Datacenter: Azure Edition may be the most feature-complete of the bunch. Like Microsoft's other Windows Server products, this version will get updated via the long-term servicing channel release model. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Visual Studio 2022 for Mac

Expected release: First half of 2022

UPDATES April 26: The release candidate of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is made available.

April 4: Preview 8 of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is released.

March 16: Preview 7 of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is released.

Feb. 17: Visual Studio 2022 for Mac preview 6 is released.

Jan. 26: Preview 5 of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is released without Mono support. The development road of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac has been riddled with problems. Microsoft expects to release it sometime in the first half of the year, putting it months behind the Windows version of Visual Studio 2022, which launched back in November.

The first Visual Studio 2022 for Mac preview became available last fall, featuring support for .NET 6 and C# 10, speed and stability improvements and a better Git user experience. Subsequent preview releases (as of this writing, it's four previews in) have been focused more on fixing numerous bugs and less on delivering major new features and capabilities. However, Microsoft has hinted that it plans to add support for Apple's M1 processors at some point in the preview process.

“To enable this support, we will be moving the IDE to run on the .NET 6 CLR (Common Language Runtime),” senior program manager Jordan Matthiesen was quoted as saying in this Visual Studio Magazine article about preview 3. “This is a major architectural change bringing with it improvements for all our users on both Intel and M1 processors. In our initial lab tests we're already seeing improvements in performance, with large solutions loading in half the amount of time it took in the v8.10 release.” [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

.NET MAUI

Released

UPDATES May 24: .NET MAUI is released at Build.

May 11: Microsoft issues release candidate 3 for .NET MAUI.

April 26: Release candidate 2 of .NET MAUI is made available.

April 15: Microsoft ships the .NET MAUI release candidate.

Jan. 19: Microsoft releases preview 12 of .NET MAUI, with updates to the roadmap.

Feb. 15: .NET MAUI preview 13 is released as platform “closes in on feature-complete.” .NET MAUI (which stands for “multi-platform app UI”) is now due to arrive early in the second quarter of 2022, after initially being slated for a November 2021 release.

Microsoft first unveiled .NET MAUI during its 2020 Build developer conference, touting it as the cross-platform .NET model for which developers have long wished – essentially, the next evolution of Xamarin.Forms. Covering the Build 2020 event, Visual Studio Magazine's David Ramel described .NET MAUI as “a single-stack UI framework that supports all modern workloads: Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows (but not Linux, other than possible 'community' driven support).”

Microsoft had originally intended to release .NET MAUI alongside the equally landmark .NET 6, but told developers last fall that it needed to “slip the schedule” to continue refining the product. The current (as of this writing) test version release, preview 11, is expected to be the final preview before Release Candidate 1, which will likely roll out in the first quarter. [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

.NET 7

Expected release: November 2022

UPDATES Sept. 14: .NET 7 Release Candidate 1, the first of two, becomes generally available.

Aug. 9: Final .NET 7 preview is released.

June 14: Preview 5 of .NET 7 is released.

May 11: .NET 7 preview 4 is released.

Feb. 17: Preview 1 of .NET 7 ships. Microsoft is set to release version 7 of .NET this November, one year after the landmark release of .NET 6. A few .NET 7 features are already in preview, according to this Visual Studio Magazine article by David Ramel, including the ability to “allow static abstract members to be declared in interfaces.”

Microsoft's Azure Functions team has also stated plans to support .NET 7 in the serverless computing platform. “We plan to support .NET 7 on day 1 exclusively in the isolated model,” the team was quoted as saying in another Visual Studio Magazine report. “We expect that you'll be able to migrate and run almost any .NET serverless workload in the isolated worker – including Durable Functions and other targeted improvements to the isolated model.”

.NET 7 will be released alongside Entity Framework Core 7, the next version of Microsoft's object-relational .NET mapper. Entity Framework Core 7 will represent a turning point for Microsoft, according to Ramel. “It continues the company's move from the old Entity Framework scheme that was part of the Windows-only .NET Framework, which was supplanted by the cross-platform, open source 'Core' lineup, which itself subsequently dropped the 'Core' designation for just .NET 6, .NET 7 and so on.” [BACK TO PRODUCT LIST]

Kurt Mackie, David Ramel and Chris Paoli contributed to this report.

https://rcpmag.com/articles/2011/02/01/the-2011-microsoft-product-roadmap.aspx