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We live in a new app world.  Especially as it relates to the Office 365 Cloud and to devices, the days of seeing the product and all it’s features in the product release and then getting fixes in a service pack or two.

Since release of SharePoint 2013, there have been a number of incremental releases to Office 365, but also to the Windows 8 Market Place, the Windows Phone Market Place, iOS App Store, and to the Office & SharePoint Market place

In this new world, everything is incremental.  At release time you only see part of the story.  The story just continues to build and build.  That’s our new reality.  Simply look at the release of SharePoint 2013.  It was all about getting the platform released, with base level support for devices.  What would come later would be the Windows 8 Apps, the iPhone and iPad apps and even Microsoft’s own integrated apps in the app store.  Even Microsoft’s own SharePoint Newsfeed app was only beta in the app store at time of release.

In this new world of apps.  We need to get use to seeing things show up over time.  As well, I’m noticing a pattern of releasing first in English and only in the US app store, with UK coming next and then eventually making it’s way out through the top languages and beyond.  My global friends have shown frustration at this perceived preference, but from a pilot perspective and in the new pattern of start incrementally and fix along the way, I think we may be seeing more of what the future looks like. 

New patterns are emerging for how software is released in mobile platforms with Windows Phone first, then Windows Store, then to subsequent platforms like iOS, with last to the market Android and only then when it’s really important.

There is obvious reasons why Microsoft would prefer to release first to the Windows and Microsoft platforms.  That’s the bread and butter, it’s the heart of where Microsoft would prefer users be.  The next few moves are what are really interesting.  How long do you have to wait to see the same mobile app go from Windows Phone to iPhone for example?  6 months?  9 months?

These patterns are still emerging, and at this point there isn’t one VP at Microsoft telling every product group to follow the same pattern.  With the Office team we are seeing some compromise with iOS.  Just like Office for Mac which had a pattern of following a year after release on Windows.  There is a similar pattern of releasing apps to iOS some period of time after the release on Windows.  What is most interesting is the cloud hook.

The Cloud hook basically says, not all users can have Office related new releases.  You first have to prove you’re on board with Microsoft in the cloud.  This isn’t just your regular consumer version of Office in iOS.  You need to prove you’re making the move to the cloud and then you’ll get Office Mobile as you verify your Office 365 subscription.  This is the case with Office Mobile and SkyDrive Pro, the professional edition of SkyDrive which is built into the My Site storage in SharePoint Online.

As well, Microsoft has been very clear that software in this new world of cloud will first go in the cloud with Office 365 with some later date a release for On Premise.  We see the first example of that in the SharePoint Newsfeed flip to Yammer.  Those with Office 365 who have already been upgraded to SharePoint 2013 in SharePoint Online have the choice to link to Yammer as the Newsfeed in Navigation.  Microsoft has shared in the Yammer roadmap that this will come to On Premise some time later.

I worry that customers will have a hard time keeping up with the releases.  A year ago when I was planning on selling SkyDrive Pro to the business I told them, the platform was ready, but there were a few caveats.  There were incrementally pieces that would need to come.  I explained that current support at the time only supported sync for Windows Desktop for Office 2013, and while I anticipated a client for iOS I had no current support or dates I could share with the business.  8 Months later. I have a much more complete story to share.  SkyDrive Pro now has support for older versions of Office as well as an iPhone app, Win Phone and Windows 8 tablet support.  The story gets more compelling.  The challenge at the time was trying to decide do we fill the gap with a third party mobile solution like Colligo Briefcase, Harmon.ie or SharePlus.  It’s worth understanding the strengths of the third party tools for sure.  Gaps will definitely continue to exist, especially as it relates to encryption and security concerns.

In conclusion, I think it’s important for all to understand the days of 3 year release cycle are gone.  These past few weeks of seeing incremental releases across mobile apps, Windows Surface Apps, and Office 365 updates, and something we need to get use to.  Customers that have learned to ignore the incremental releases need to change their patterns and understand that this new world is all about change.  Change happens a lot more frequently and those that are plugged in will be rewarded.

I started my global travel back in 2001 when I first visited Paris, France.  I realized I could travel with my profession by getting good at what I do, and in speaking at conferences.

Since that time I made a number of personal travel goals.  It started with a personal Goal in 2002. To travel to a new country every year – ongoing

You can read about my travels at http://travelingepic.com

Goals

• Travel to a new country every year – ongoing
• Visit the 7 Wonders of the World – complete
• Qualify for the Travelers Century Club (75 TCC countries) – complete
• Visit 100 TCC Countries according to TCC rules – 100 TCC countries – complete
• Visit 100 UN Countries – complete
• Visit all the states in the US 48/50, Australia 6/8, and Canada 8/14 and island nations around the UK and in the Med
• Visit all of the UN Countries – Making progress, over 100 More than half way!

After reading Chris Guillebeau and his quest to visit all of the countries in the world and seeing his cool infographic, I decided I needed to make my new goal official… before I was saying things like… I want to visit all of the countries in the world before I die.

New Goal

I will visit every Country* in the world by my 50th birthday

*Country as defined by the UN by my 50th birthday. 105/193

Yes, I’m a dad, and my family is my first priority. I won’t let that get in the way of my family life, kids school, college, missions, marriages and so on.

Speaking of which, I was doing a friend comparison on the “Where I’ve been” app on facebook.  Of the 392 friends I have that use this app, my 13 year old son Jared is #9 on my the list (of most traveled friends).  

How will work handle this?  My travel schedule is already baked into the agreement I have with my fantastic employer Salient6.  They support me in my global evangelism and I can take 4 “big trips” a year.  In Chris’s world these would be similar to his round the world trips.  For me, I pick a region that I’m going to be speaking near, and work with awesome sponsors who sponsor my friends and I in building communities which bring education, connections, networking, which provide a pipeline of work and industry into their part of the world.  We continue to evolve the community building, and education part of what we do.  I hope to be making some announcements in this area for our upcoming travel to Equatorial Africa in the Fall.

Many companies are waiting to update their corporate browser standards and as a result, there’s a battle not only for consumers, but more and more it’s chaos in the enterprise as it relates to browsers.  Old operating systems with old browsers are often used as the standard browser with the idea of a minimum bar that isn’t enforced.  Old versions of Internet explorer hurt the path for new versions of Internet explorer paving the way for more use of Chrome which is gaining more and more market share.  According to Statscounter Global Stats, Chrome has a commanding lead in the consumer space, with many users preferring the user experience and control of Firefox, while IE gets abused and neglected with adoption continuing to decrease.  Who’s to blame?  Blame Windows?  You can’t blame Windows for supporting or neglecting desktops with old versions of IE.  It seems even the least tech savvy folks I’ve run into have multiple browsers, and for some reason they never upgrade IE, that’s too scary.  They simply install Chrome and Firefox and then only pull out that old version of IE when they have to… which they hate to do!

As a result of old line of business apps built in such a way that it may require old versions of IE such as IE 7 or at best IE 8 in compatibility mode, it hurts the adoption newer versions of Internet Explorer which means more powerful web applications.  I recently came across the infographic below which demonstrates the problem. “Internet Explorer makes up almost 95% of non compatible HTML5 browsers still in use yet 46% of designers are using HTML5 for their designs.”

At home this could be folks who don’t know how to update their browser… but if that’s true then why are there new version of Chrome and Firefox on more desktops?

There’s a call to action here…

SInce Microsoft doesn’t have auto update with Internet Explorer, there needs to be mandated upgrade of Internet Explorer.  It’s causing issues and IE will be to blame.  The only way to overcome the FUD focused on IE will be to get this updated.  At a corporate level touching browser versions seems to be a thing of the past.  If you’re managing desktops or have influence over browser standards… you NEED to get your browsers to an HTML5 compliant browser at a minimum.  IE Is getting hammered both in the consumer and corporate space.  It’s suffering big time and someone needs to wake up and put some effort in.  If you’re not updating the desktop to the latest OS, you do need to keep up with the browsers.  It’s a problem for viruses, support, and so much more.

Action Requested:

1. Review your browser install base – desktop data statistics can get you this.  Web Analytics can give you an idea of the install base.  You’ll also notice who isn’t following your corporate standards.

2. Determine your new browser standard –  consider HTML5 compliant browsers.  Look seriously at newer versions of IE.  I’d say IE 9 at a minimum, but seriously look at Chrome as an alternate browser.  Consider these interesting browser speed test results.

Also refer to PCMag results ‘”By the Numbers: the Fastest Browser – Google’s Chrome hit the world with blazing speed, but is it still the fastest browser, or have IE, Firefox, and Opera caught up? The answer might surprise you.”

Courtesy PCMag (1 of many charts)

3. Come up with a plan to set a minimum bar.  This may mean putting emphasis behind updating legacy LOB apps that are holding back the entire enterprise.  Give it a date to get compliant.

Infographic embed used with permission.

http://www.incion.com/resources/uploaded/Website-Design-Facts.jpg