SharePoint Server 2016

Contrary to popular beliefs that Microsoft might stop offering new on-premise versions of SharePoint, last week’s announcement and the new SharePoint sessions offered at the Ignite conference in Chicago refute the unfounded rumors.

So, Microsoft confirmed the roll out of SharePoint Server 2016 in the second half of 2015. The new version will make available some features developed and deployed first on SharePoint Online.

According to Microsoft, the new SharePoint Server 2016 has been designed, developed and tested with the Microsoft Software as a Service (SaaS) strategy at its core, drawing from SharePoint Online. Hence, SharePoint Server 2016 will offer customers improved, flexible deployment options, enhanced reliability and new IT agility, enabled for massive scale.

Even though SharePoint on-premises adoption rate (SharePoint 2010 – 71%, SharePoint 2013 – 35%) is higher than the Office 365 (21%) Microsoft is still putting all its effort into polishing O365 by adding new features like Office Delve, Office Graph, NextGen Portals, Office 365 Video and OneDrive.

Also deemed notable and quizzical, the hybrid version of SharePoint, which according to Microsoft, “will allow customers to take advantage of cloud capabilities at their own pace. A hybrid SharePoint deployment can provide IT agility by creating a consistent platform spanning datacenters and cloud, simplifying IT and delivering apps and data to users on any device, anywhere.“

To simplify the above mumbo-jumbo, Microsoft wants to bring more of the Office 365 experiences to the on-premises customers.