Making the Windows Insider Program better for our IT Pro and business customers

Topic

New Reply

Making the Windows Insider Program better for our IT Pro and business customers
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/02/15/making-windows-insider-program-better-pro-business-customers/

By Bill Karagounis / Director of Program Management, Windows Insider Program & OS Fundamentals
FEBRUARY 15, 2017 4:01 PM

Hi Windows Insiders!

Hello from Ignite Australia on the Gold Coast. Here this week, we’re participating in several keynote and breakout sessions featuring the Windows Insider Program and our community. One thing I’m excited to showcase here is our commitment to an important part of the Windows Insider Program, IT Professionals. We’re incredibly honored and empowered by the IT Pros participating in the Windows Insider Program to evaluate Windows 10 and its features as part of their deployment process.

Inside in the Windows Insider Program, we believe IT Pros play a crucial role in ANY organization as the drivers and enablers of Digital Transformation within their organizations, regardless of industry. As our CEO Satya Nadella says, “every company is a digital company.” With over 40% of Windows Insiders working in IT, we recognize and know that you are the experts in your field. Since you’re on the frontline of your organization, we’re working hard to offer you an expanded experience within the Insider program that bolsters that expertise and is tailored to your needs.

We’ve received your feedback through many channels, including the Feedback Hub built in to Windows, surveys, and in-person Windows Insider events like we hosted at Ignite Australia. You’ve told us you want better support when you to run Insider builds within your organization. Among the changes that we have planned are tools to allow you to participate in the Windows Insider Program with corporate credentials and a way to recognize feedback submitted by others in your organization. We’re taking steps to make it easier to run preview builds and test features inside your organization, to connect you with the robust community of IT experts like you, and to help you engage even deeper with global subject matter experts on the topics you care about. We’ll also be continuing to listen and learn from you, seeking to create content helping you do YOUR job better, easier and faster.

Over the coming months, we’ll be rolling out a series of new pieces in the program to better support you. To sign up for more information as it becomes available, please complete our pre-registration form. While there are many exciting changes coming for the Windows Insider Program, we don’t want you to wait to start flighting pre-release builds in your organizations. Check out this post on TechNet for more information on how you can start testing all the great new features for the Windows 10 Creators Update in your organization today. Please let us know what you think, and how we can do more to create (or rather to Co-Create with you) the best Windows on the planet!

Thanks,
Bill
@billkar44

UPDATED FEBRUARY 15, 2017 6:22 PM

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

Reply | Quote

Replies

I’ve avoided covering this in InfoWorld because I don’t quite see its purpose. Yes, it’s good to have a beta testing program – but why have a separate one for corporate customers? We aren’t talking about different feature sets…

Anyway, I’m mystified why anyone would want to join this separate program, and what benefit it would have to any participating companies.

It may be an ego thing, I know, in the grand marketing beta tradition. Hard to say.

Reply | Quote

OMG, that’s a brilliant idea! You can have a full job at IT dept. and then another one, for free, to test software for Microsoft :). Why Maserati hasn’t invented this program is beyond my belief – but maybe because they offer products, not services ;). Anyway, if ever Maserati comes out with a program to test their cars, hell, I’ll do that for free!

2 users thanked author for this post.

PhotM, woody

Reply | Quote

woody wrote:

I’ve avoided covering this in InfoWorld because I don’t quite see its purpose. Yes, it’s good to have a beta testing program – but why have a separate one for corporate customers? We aren’t talking about different feature sets…

There has been allot of complaints by the Professionals, that possibly have risen to the Executive Suite that there is to much chaff and fluff cruft in the FeedBack Hub and current Insider Program. I have no Idea if this will address any of that BUT from Microsoft’s perspective ‘They are truly paying the Bills for Windows’. It is also PART of the “Unspoken” effort by Microsoft to keep Windows from turning into ‘Simply an Utility'(which the actual OS has dome for the Billions).

woody wrote:

Anyway, I’m mystified why anyone would want to join this separate program, and what benefit it would have to any participating companies.

A common misconception is the W 10 Pro is the same as W 10 Enterprise. Actually they are diverging more and more in Three areas so far, more to come later:

Security – Not that the average user would ever what to lock things down like Enterprises and Companies would but Businesses might want to go part way.
Group Policy Objects – Again for control of the other two as well as other things Enterprisie.
Microsoft and Windows Updates/Upgrades Commonly, WSUS and/or SCCM But also third parties, are wanting and demanding more unique approaches to this area of distribution/MS Backend along with minimum to strong controls depending on whether it is a laptop/tablet floating around rarely coming home, right to one locked down one task dedicated PC in house.

woody wrote:

It may be an ego thing, I know, in the grand marketing beta tradition. Hard to say.

Ego, maybe part of it (because we are paying so much) as well as marketing justification.

We also need to remember that since W 7, Windows have been augmented and adjusted for and with the novice consumer(Home and Mobile) in mind, much to the determent of some(like myself).
Why, because they expected to make more money? NO, DEFINITELY NOT, because of numbers! Billions of People in there ecosystem is more valuable to Microsoft then the money they may or may not pay. That impresses Enterprises and Companies, for one reason it can mean allot of already “taught” people on Windows OS PC’s as well as supporting there other Big Systems/Server Systems(which are the HUGE money earners for Microsoft, like Office) for all sorts of platforms which also run on Windows OS’s.
So as MS maneuvers to ‘molly coddle’ the Billions of consumers, it is really all about the Enterprise and bringing them on board with a slue of features for them(see conjecture and MS leaks about 17?10? Edition of W 10).

I, like many of you, am a Windows XX.nn Pro user. I have no hands on, like a few of you do, experience with the Enterprise Edition of Windows BUT I can read/listen/hear whats going on out there.

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

1 user thanked author for this post.

woody

Reply | Quote

I would be very interested in this program if . . . IF . . . they give us a private fast track channel for SMB and small enterprise relevant feedback that would rise above the noise in the normal Feedback Hub. (Note that large enterprises have a fast track reporting and resolution system already – so this program is either being expanded from that, or it’s not for them.)

Case in point: It took Microsoft months to notice a nasty bug being reported by IT professionals about a search related crash in client-side File Explorer when creating folders on server side shares. Once they noticed, they took months longer to raise the priority on the bug because they felt it was a one-off case (it wasn’t – in fact it turned out to be universal for the specific combination of Win 10 1607 combined with Server 2012 R2 on a domain.)

~ Group "Weekend" ~

1 user thanked author for this post.

PhotM

Reply | Quote

Yup,

I have had the same experience. For MS Insider Program is all about Masses, therefore numbers. Because some people try to indicate a problem, or don’t because they DON’T have the necessary Technical Expertise to describe a Bug, you may only have a few Up Votes on a very serious problem.

When these type of problems really BIT the MS insider’s, that really gets their attention.

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

Reply | Quote