Configuration Manager 2012 – Release Candidate is here!

The release candidate is now available!
Release candidate = new product name, it is now “System Center 2012 Configuration Manager“! There are a lot of new features in the Release candidate so be sure to check it out!
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27841

Some of the new features:

“In the Release Candidate, we’ve introduced some additional and enhanced capabilities, including:

• Improved endpoint protection functionality, with integrated setup, management and reporting for System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection.
• Improved application catalog design that provides a better, more responsive experience when requesting and downloading applications.
• New support for Windows Embedded devices, including Windows Embedded 7 SP1, POSReady 7, Windows 7 Thin PC, and Windows Embedded Compact 7.
• Improved client status checks for Configuration Manager services and features.
• Improved compliance enforcement and tracking, with the ability to create dynamic collections of baseline compliance and the generation of hourly compliance summaries.
• Platform support for deep mobile device management of Nokia Symbian Belle devices. Pending a platform update by Nokia later this calendar year for these devices, customers will be able to try out the management of these Nokia devices with ConfigMgr.
• Additional scalability and performance improvements.

Read the whole article here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2011/10/25/system-center-2012-configuration-manager-release-candidate-is-here.aspx

Another great article was released yesterday about how Microsoft IT uses Configuration Manager 2012: Configuration Manager 2012 Real World Deployment Experience

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shitanshu/archive/2011/10/16/configuration-manager-2012-deployment-real-world-experience-part-1.aspx

I hope you enjoy the release candidate as much as I do!

/Jörgen