Microsoft Convergence 2015 – Office 2016 Gets Unwrapped

Microsoft has unveiled the next step for its Office software suite by announcing a further preview of Office 2016.

Optimised for Windows 10, the new software suite is now open to Microsoft’s commercial Office 365 customers for testing and evaluation, with new updates being delivered in monthly updates.

The launch follows several months of private testing since Office 2016 was confirmed in January.

Future look

Microsoft says it has added several new features to Office 2016 that makes it ideal for IT professionals and developers.

This includes the addition of Data Loss Prevention into Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, providing further security measure for IT administrators, who can now centrally create, manage and enforce polices for content authoring and document sharing.

The tool was already integrated into Exchange, Outlook, OneDrive for Business and Sharepoint, and Microsoft now expects end users will begin to see policy tips or sharing restrictions when the apps detect a potential policy violation.

Also included are a range of technical improvements to Outlook, including tweaks on email storage, server connectivity, multi-factor authentication and an improvement on the amount of time it takes to download messages.

Lastly, Microsoft has packed in new deployment features for IT administrators, enabling better network traffic management thanks to a new Background Intelligence Transfer Service (BITS) to help prevent congestion on the network. There’s also a new way for admins to manage the pace at which they receive feature updates and bug fixes while continuing to receive regular security updates.

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