The Microsoft Product Roadmap 2024.

It’s hard to believe that nearly half of 2024 is already behind us. The biggest Microsoft changes this year haven’t even hit the market, though there have been a few notable entries to the growing list of products and services. The rest of the year is shaping up to have some impactful additions to stay tuned on, so we’ve decided to put together a roadmap of what to watch and when it’s expected to go live.

Microsoft is aggressively pushing Copilot this year, with AI innovations appearing across multiple programs and services. The next version of Windows, that being Windows 12, is set to arrive in the second half of 2024, with the earliest possible date being sometime in late June.

Windows 12’s largest draw is the implementation of Copilot into its standard functionality, building on previous iterations of Copilot for greater AI integration. Windows 12 devices and new Windows 11 devices will all have a dedicated Copilot button, which will be the biggest change to the Windows PC keyboard in over three decades.

The Copilot button is the first of many AI promises. The hope of blurring the lines between local and cloud processing is becoming more realistic each year.

The newest change to SharePoint is already out, with SharePoint Embedded, previously known as Syntex Repository Services, out in the current market. This new API-only solution enables app developers to utilize Microsoft 365 file and document storage for any app. Useful for those enterprises building out lines of business applications and multi-tenant applications, this could change the way you approach building at scale.

Expected later this year, SharePoint Server Subscriptions will also see a change. While the first version of this product is already out, the second version is slated to arrive in September or November. While this isn’t an introduction of notable features, which Microsoft already delivers in “Public Updates,” it’s always good to keep up to date on your server subscription details.

Fluid Framework, Microsoft’s open-source document collaboration solution, is set to hit the second version milestone this summer. While version 2 was in beta earlier this year, it will feature support for Azure Fluid Relay and SharePoint Embedded. This also includes a SharedTree Distributed Data Structure (DDS) feature, which is supposed to be an intuitive programming interface.

Like other Fluid Framework distributed data structures, SharedTree is designed to use the same patterns developers would use when working with local data structures like object models. The new Fluid Framework allows data to be changed remotely and keep everything in sync. SharedTree includes sophisticated merge semantics for working with arrays and supports features that make working with collaborative data easier.

Microsoft hasn’t indicated when the next customer-premises version of Windows Server is set to arrive, but the current version is approaching it’s three-year mark. It wouldn’t be unrealistic to see the next major Windows Server launch to happen in fall or winter of 2024.

Windows Server 2025 has been under development for the past few years, with the latest build preview released at the end of 2023. A few changes revealed at last year’s Microsoft Ignite were easier update processes, a pay-as-you-go subscription method in addition to the usual perpetual license, improvements to Azure Stack HCI, and broad availability of SMB over QUIC.

Microsoft Copilot has been the talk of the town for months now, with Microsoft extolling the virtues of it’s use across their product lines. There are discrete Copilot-branded products like Security Copilot, along with Copilot-powered capabilities inside Microsoft services, such as Copilot in Teams integration.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 for organizations became available in November 2024, but this January, Microsoft announced they will release it for small and medium businesses. Microsoft also broadened Copilot for Microsoft 365 sales to Office 365 E3 and E5 licensees and dropped the 300-seat purchase requirement. All Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider partners are selling Copilot for Microsoft 365 to commercial entities as well.

One of the upcoming Copilot milestones to watch for includes Copilot in Loop, which would let Loop users collaborate on existing project templates. The other is Copilot for Microsoft Fabric and Power BI, which is designed to let users create a well-orchestrated data estate that minimizes data fragmentation and helps users find accurate, updated data.

For the past few years, Microsoft has rolled out two updates per year for the Dynamics 365 CRM platform. The first release for this year arrived in April, with the second expected in early October.

Upcoming features include integration with Copilot, integration between Dynamics Field Service, Finance and Supply Chain Management, and expanded Copilot capabilities and Copilot in Dynamics 365 guides.

Microsoft 365 Archive is designed as a sort of “cold storage” for SharePoint sites and is currently released at the paid preview stage. While future availability hasn’t been indicated yet, there is a good chance we will see a first look sometime late this year or early next. Microsoft 365 Archive is based on Microsoft Syntex and described as being capable of being fast and having metadata and storage cost saving benefits. We’ll see what they have in store in the future.

With so many new Microsoft products and services arriving just this year, the odds of your Unified plan pricing changing in the future are unfortunately pretty good. The more services that need to be supported, the higher your price.

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