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Updating the KN Release Plan

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We’ve updated the KN release plan and wanted to post some details. We’re planning on releasing KN in the first half of calendar year 2007 as a Technical Preview rather than as a supported product feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. As a Technical Preview, KN will still be available to customers as a web download at no additional cost and will include documentation and community support. It won’t, however, be supported or covered by standard product support services or warranties.

This update comes as a response to customer feedback. Across the board, people are excited about KN, but they’ve also stressed that they’d like to see KN integrated into the core Office Client and Server products rather than released as an add-on. After carefully considering the trade-offs, we think that’s the right way to go. The release next year will be a preview of capabilities we’ll be working to incorporate into Office in the future.

Technical Previews are best used to pilot new technologies and solicit feedback, and that’s exactly what we want to do. We hope that that customers who use the release in this way will not only gain valuable insight into how the technology can be implemented more broadly, but will also provide us with input that will be invaluable in integrating these features into future releases of the Office System. Stay tuned for more.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2006
    Too bad, KN was pretty innovative and positioning it as an infrastructure extension to SharePoint was the right approach. I would imagine though that not only does there need to be richer integration with Office and other server products but also the build-out of a partner model with interfaces that would enable third parties to take KN into different directions. http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2006/12/microsoft_knowl.html

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2006
    I don't understand why Microsoft decided to go that route.  I was under the impression that KN was in full implementation in-house.  Why not distribute it as a supported add-on feature (at least)?

  • Anonymous
    December 14, 2006
    I agree that this is too bad.  It will make me hesitant to deploy this for clients, as we can not count on support or even the existence of the product in the future.  Was considering this for a major client, but can not recommend something unsupported.  Will hope it gets more backing from MS in the future.

  • Anonymous
    December 17, 2006
    This is very disapointing  :-(

  • Anonymous
    December 19, 2006
    No please don’t get too excited or inflamed by the title of this post. In reality this is...

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2007
    I believe there had been challenges in releasing the KN as a supported-addon and their quick resolution is to give it out as a preview. It is strongly believe KN would be in the next version of SharePoint.