Unlike consumer subscribers of Office 365, organizations using Microsoft Office have more options for deploying Office 2016.
If your organization is on a Volume Licencing agreement, the Office 2016 install files will be available for download from 1st October 2015 (not the 22 Sept general release date).
Introducing Current Branch
Office 365 ProPlus arrangements are different, because it uses streaming install ‘Click to Run’ Updates are sent and installed automatically.
Many companies weren’t happy with the idea of updates being pushed out so often with the risk of, shall we say, unintended consequences.
Microsoft has relented with the introduction of ‘Current Branch’ options for Office 365 ProPlus.
These Branch options lets network admins control the pace of Office software updates.
Current Branch
This is the current updating schedule. Updates and security patches are pushed out to computers as soon as they are available. This is the same as the consumer schedule.
Current Branch for Business
This is a new ‘delayed’ update plan with the acronym CBB. Updates are accumulated and only sent out three times a year.
Organizations can skip a CBB release but there’s a catch.
The next release on this branch will be in February 2016. That’s when Office 365 ProPlus on this branch will get Office 2016/Win plus any security patches from the previous months.
Admins will be able to get previews of an upcoming CBB release so they can test compatibility, notify users of any changes etc.
Organizations can skip a CBB release but there’s a catch. Microsoft won’t support a CBB release older than 8 months. If you choose to skip a CBB build, you have to accept the following one or lose support. That means no more security updates for an ‘old’ Office release.
Microsoft offers this diagram to help understand Current Branch and Current Branch for Business. It looks horribly confusing but makes sense after you’ve dug into the written details.
Source: Microsoft
TechNet has lots of detail including how to control CBB releases (Via Group Policy/Office Deployment Tool). Different users can be on the Current Branch while others are on CBB. The CB setting is per user/computer not organization wide.
