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You are about to embark on a fantastic journey! System Center 2012 Configuration
Manager is an exciting, new version of the Configuration Manager product line. While
each release of Configuration Manager, or the predecessor product—Systems Management
Server—has been a great improvement over the previous version, we believe that without
a doubt this is the most feature-rich and revolutionary version of Configuration Manager
that the product group has ever released. From the improved software distribution, focusing
on user-centric delivery of applications, to the reduced infrastructure requirements,
SQL Server-based replication and improved security, to the enhancements designed to
make your lives easier as Configuration Manager administrators, this product is one
that we’re extremely confident you’ll enjoy working with and find beneficial in your
environments.
After years in development, this product has been thoroughly tested, not only within the
Configuration Manager product group, within Microsoft IT, by numerous Technology
Adoption Program (TAP) customers testing beta and release candidate releases in production,
but also by thousands of open beta customers testing in lab environments. Through
all this testing, we are confident that you can have a great experience with Configuration
Manager 2012 in your production environments—and see great return on your
investment.
To those of you who participated in the open beta, CEP, CEP for Production, OneTAP,
and TAP programs: Thank you for your assistance in testing the pre-release versions of
Configuration Manager 2012. Your feedback—whether suggestions for enhancements or
requests for new features, as well as feedback that reported features not working as they
should—certainly helped shape the product that you see today. I want to especially thank
our TAP customers because you lived with us through production deployments of the beta
1 and beta 2 releases, which, for some of you, shall we say were somewhat challenging.
Thanks for sticking with us and for helping us create a fantastic product, even though
some of your experiences were not as smooth as you would have expected. It is through
your efforts and dedication that the RTM version of the product is a great one that everyone
can take pride in.
To those of you who are new to the Configuration Manager world: Welcome—we are glad
to have you join us. To those of you who are migrating from previous releases: Thank
you for your desire to venture into this brave new world from a previous version of the
product that I am sure is providing great benefit to you. We appreciate your loyalty and
trust in us as a product group and believe you can have a great experience with this new,
groundbreaking release. |