Today marks Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of SharePoint Server 2016! This is an important milestone in the delivery of this significant release, which includes new capabilities for users, IT pros and administrators, as well as the next generation of hybrid capabilities for SharePoint. This also marks the general availability of cloud hybrid search for SharePoint Server 2013 and higher customers—allowing on-premises and Office 365 content to be surfaced in one search result.

We want to thank the thousands of users and IT pros who provided feedback through our UserVoice, our forums, social channels and our Technology Adoption Program (TAP). Your input—coupled with our learnings from running SharePoint at scale in Office 365—makes SharePoint Server 2016 the most reliable, scalable, secure and high-performing SharePoint Server release ever.

Learn more in the SharePoint Server 2016 reviewer’s guide or download a trial of the RTM version. SharePoint Server 2016 will be generally available in the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center in early May.

We are also excited to announce the RTM of Project Server 2016 that is distributed as part of SharePoint Server 2016. Learn more in the Project Server 2016 release notes.

What’s next for SharePoint

Billions of documents are stored on SharePoint sites—making it the center of content management and collaboration for over a decade. Whether enabling students to work together or helping a company transform its entire intranet, we have continually evolved SharePoint to meet the changing needs of the digital workplace.

As work teams become more dynamic and digital content growth continues to skyrocket, SharePoint will play an ever increasing role in enabling content collaboration for the new way of working. As a part of Microsoft’s broader ambition to reinvent productivity, we are on a mission to make SharePoint more simple, mobile, intelligent and secure to help customers unlock the value of having it as an integrated part of Office 365. This year, we will release significant new innovations spanning user experiences, document collaboration, mobile enhancements and platform improvements that will redefine modern content collaboration.

The Future of SharePoint virtual event

Please join us on May 4, 2016 for a live online event to celebrate SharePoint 2016 and unveil our vision and roadmap for the future of SharePoint. See Jeff Teper, CVP for OneDrive and SharePoint, outline our vision and future plans for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business—both on-premises and in the cloud with Office 365. Following the keynote will be a number of sessions detailing the new innovations along with sneak peek demos of what’s coming. Whether you are an executive, IT pro, developer or SharePoint user, we have a lot to share and hope you’ll be part of this historic moment and register today.

Resources to help you get started with SharePoint Server 2016

—Seth Patton, general manager for the SharePoint and OneDrive Product Management team