Picture: Microsoft.
Microsoft has informed attendees of its Olympia Corp. test lab for Windows Enterprise users that the program is coming to an end. No comment was made on this decision.
Chris Gahlsdorf, a Windows Insider MVP (Most Valuable Professional), tweeted last week about the impending shutdown. He linked an e-mail received by his company about the end of Olympia Corp: “we will be retiring the Olympia licenses and removing the Olympia feedback channel,” the note reads.
Microsoft also advises: “If you are using the provided Olympia licenses, back up your data within the next 30 days, before September 12, 2022.”
A program launched in 2017
Microsoft launched the Olympia program in 2017. It was intended to encourage testers of the Windows 10 Insider Program for Business to try out some of its future business-oriented features. In 2018, Microsoft renamed the Olympia Corp. and began looking more actively for Windows Insiders who wanted to try Windows 10 Enterprise features in beta.
Asked why the company was ending the Olympia test lab, a Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet that the company had “nothing to share at this time.” And on what the shutdown, if any, means for the future of the Windows Insider Program for Business, Microsoft has nothing to say either.
On Twitter, Chris Gahlsdorf recalled that the Olympia lab was helpful in seeing how things were “supposed to work” when implementing them in his own organization. “But they have so many demos and simulations now that they think maybe that’s enough? he wonders.
Microsoft has added a number of new programs intended to convince businesses to upgrade to Windows 11. The other possibility is that Olympia has been so lightly used that it didn’t make sense for Microsoft to continue the program at some point. where it makes restrictions in Windows and Office organizations.
Source: ZDNet.com