Microsoft brings its Windows Insider program to the enterprise with WIP4Biz

Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program has been immensely successful for the software giant, helping it to improve Windows 10 over the past couple of years. Today at Microsoft Ignite Australia, Microsoft announced that the company is bringing the Windows Insider Program to businesses with Windows Insider Program for Businesses — or WIP4Biz, for short.

As reported by Neowin, Microsoft’s main aim with WIP4Biz is to get feedback from corporate and business environments. Microsoft’s Bill Karagounis stated that Microsoft’s main goal with WIP4Biz is to “make Insider systems and capabilities more friendly and easier to fit into your business environments”. Bill later added that Microsoft also wants to use feedback gained via the WIP4Biz program to improve Windows 10’s development process, as the company will be able to gain more data on what’s important for its enterprise customers.

At Ignite, Microsoft also detailed some of the other key goals for WIP4Biz — and they are quite similar to the normal Windows Insider program for consumers. As you can see below, WIP4Biz aims to bring commercial Insiders into the community to build excitement and engagement for Windows 10 updates. WIP4Biz will also let users submit feedback, which is really what Microsoft is looking for:

Bring Commercial Insiders into the community

• Build a community of like-minded individuals to share information
• Create experiences to build excitement and engagement with WIP
• Advocate for the needs of the community with product changes including software updates and the supporting communication

Get feedback on commercial features/functionalities

• Provide a scalable feedback mechanism for Insiders at all levels
• Listen to businesses’ and Insiders’ needs and requirements
• Test our new commercial features, migrate business workflows to pre-release software where appropriate and provide feedback

Support Windows Commercial deployment

• Deliver information about new features in Windows and the benefits to the Insider’s organization while supporting end user adoption
• Offer a channel to have a real-time dialogue with WIP and Microsoft
• Share success stories, provide role models and connections

Microsoft also announced on the official Windows Insider program that the company will be adding new features to the Windows Insider program to help IT Professionals on their jobs. These new features will allow them to prepare their organizations and systems for new updates to Windows 10 — the company will also enable IT Pros to deploy new tools and services more quickly:

In the coming months, we’ll be adding additional features to the existing Windows Insider Program to better support you in your job. Incorporating the Windows Insider Program for IT Professionals into your deployment plans enables you to prepare your organization for Windows 10, to deploy new services and tools more quickly, to secure your applications, to increase productivity giving you confidence in the stability of your environment.

Exact details regarding how WIP4Biz will work is yet to be available, but we suspect Microsoft will shed some light on more details once the company officially launches WIP4Biz. In the meantime, IT Pros were encouraged by Microsoft to finish a survey here regarding WIP4Biz at Ignite Australia.