Service Pack Release Timing is Changing

Why did we make this change? Quality. Releasing new feature Service Packs in June and December (our model up to now) has put a lot of pressure on clients to consider those releases just before their major annual upgrade window(s) without feeling like they had adequate time to evaluate the release. With this change, most of you will have twice the amount of time to test and prepare for the new feature releases. And, we plan to make the maintenance only releases available before critical back-to-school windows for the majority of clients. What else are we doing to improve quality? With Release 9.1 SP8, we will be introducing a quality program for our development partners (including client developers!), allowing them earlier access to our releases ahead of their general availability, so greater integration testing can occur on behalf of our mutual objective of overall quality. And, we’re looking at how best to give our clients information about which publicly available Blackboard Building Blocks™ have been tested against a particular Service Pack so you can factor that information into your upgrade decision. We are passionate about improving quality and you’ll continue to see improvements with each Service Pack release. The net result is the following revised planned schedule: