The Next wave of Client Management begins now……

Today we are announcing the opening of the Technology Adoption Program nominations for the next release of System Center Configuration Manager. 

The Technology Adoption Program is designed to provide a consistent experience for Microsoft customers to obtain real-world customer feedback on Microsoft pre-release products. 

There are many benefits for our TAP customers, to name a few:

• Lead the market by adopting critical enabling technologies early
• Influence and shape the final product by providing early and deep feedback
• Connect with expertise to obtain a deep understanding of strategic emerging technologies

Building on over 14 years of systems management industry experience, Configuration Manager (formerly SMS) is the world leader in software distribution, OS deployment, HW/SW inventory and more.  Moving forward, there are both new capabilities as well as enhancements to existing product functionality that form the investments for engineering. 

Over the coming year the next release of Configuration Manager will move into a public beta.  Even at this early stage, we want to ensure that it is the highest quality release possible; the TAP program helps significantly in this effort. 

I would like to highlight for you briefly what the investment pillars for this next release are, and over the coming months we will continue to go deeper on these areas with different product folks through interviews, online chats and other forms of content.

The next release of Configuration Manager will focus on a few main areas:

• Improving client management experiences through enhanced, integrated software distribution models.  The next release of Configuration Manager will provide a framework for the right application format to be delivered to the user based on who they are, the device they are using, and their connection.
• Infrastructure improvements are also a main focus.  Optimizing site hierarchy, replication and content distribution on the backend.  For the managed client, improving client health and remediation capabilities will ensure that when a system is managed, it remains healthy and secure.  Part of this is also improving the Admin experience.  In the past we did this by reducing mouse clicks to get through an activity.  This is only part of the process.  Adding security models to enable role based administration, as well as improving the Admin console experience will ensure that Admins are more efficient everywhere.
• In addition, other areas of focus include expanding device management scenarios, model based configuration management and improving patch management services; just a few of the places we are focused on development.

We hope to see a strong interest in this TAP program, and we want to ensure as many organizations are engaged as possible.  The team is limited in resource, and as a result, not every TAP nomination can be accepted.  Completion/Submission of the TAP nomination form is not a guarantee of acceptance.  All completed nominations are evaluated to ensure the right fit, priorities and alignment of goals are present. 

The TAP is not your only avenue to access the next release of ConfigMgr.  There are other ways you be able to experience the product before release, such as the public beta programs.  Stay tuned to this blog for further announcements.

Link to Nomination Survey is here.
More information about the Microsoft TAP program can be found here.
System Center product information can be found here.

Thanks for your time

Jeff Wettlaufer 
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center