This article was published on February 22, 2012

Aimed for a 2012 release, SharePoint 15 will contain an app store


Aimed for a 2012 release, SharePoint 15 will contain an app store

SharePoint as a product has become so popular that there now exists a cottage industry for simply working on where it will go next. Bjorn Furuknap is part of that field. He has taken his USPJ Academy business, which provides SharePoint training, and extended it to include the selling of research looking into the software’s next steps.

We say cool. Even better, he gave ZDNet a peek into what is coming down the pike, which Mary Jo Foley has independently confirmed. Result? We have a treasure trove of new data about the next version of SharePoint, and the larger Office 15 suite. We’ll do it in bite size pieces:

  • Office 15, which will include the next edition of SharePoint and Office 365, should be released this year (2012);
  • SharePoint 15 will contain an app store;
  • These apps will support multi-tenant installations, which will allow SharePoint providers to make applications available to several customers;
  • To better compete with education products, a new ‘module’ will be added;
  • SharePoint 15 should include ‘information-rights-management’ capabilities.

That’s quite the list. We are not surprised to see that Office 15 is heading for a 2012 release, even if it ends up named Office 2013 due to a late-year debut. Microsoft would very much like to head into the holiday season with a new Office product, a new Windows product, and a new mobile product (Windows Phone 8). We had thought that that list would include a new Xbox console, but that appears to have been turned around in the worst possible way.

All together, the SharePoint wagon keeps on ‘arolling.

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