Microsoft is gearing up for the release of the first cumulative update for the Office System. The Redmond company is changing the delivery model of the hotfixes designed for Office, introducing a defined schedule for the releases. Currently, hotfixes are made available on a weekly basis but moving forward, this will no longer be the case. In this regard, a scheduled delivery model involves nothing more than bundling hotfixes in bi-monthly packages labeled as Cumulative Updates. The first Cumulative Update for the Office System is planned for availability in August 2008.

"The primary goal is to deliver high quality fixes in a predictable timeframe. Other hotfix teams at Microsoft (SQL Server and Exchange, for instance) have also adopted periodic delivery mechanisms for hotfixes. With the new model, customers will still be able to request emergency fixes with an accelerated turn-around time. These fixes are termed Critical On-demand hotfixes (COD), to distinguish them from the cumulative updates that are released every two months," a member of the Office Sustained Engineering team stated.

Microsoft indicated that the new Cumulative Updates servicing model would be applied to all Office Suites that are supported at this point in time, including Office 2003 and the Office 2007 System. According to Microsoft, Service Pack releases will not be impacted by the new distribution model for hotfixes in Cumulative Updates. As a matter of fact, not even the security updates for the productivity suites will be impacted.

"As is currently the case, hotfixes will be released in the form of 'packages' that include fixes for customer-identified problems (where a 'package' may contain one or more fixes). Customers accepting hotfixes will not be required to install anything more than they install today in order to take advantage of a cumulative update. Cumulative updates apply to all versions of Office that are currently in mainstream support," the Office Sustained Engineering team representative added.