<p>Early 2014 will see Service Pack 1 updates for Office 2013, SharePoint 2013, and Exchange 2013 (but apparently not Lync), bringing the on-premises versions of these servers and applications up to par with the then-current Office 365 versions. It appears that issuing periodic service packs is how Microsoft will keep the on-premises versions of its offerings at parity with the cloud-delivered Office 365 versions, whose changes come more incrementally but more often -- and automatically.</p><p>Of course, it's not a sure thing that all the features found in Office 365 versions will be made available to the on-premises servers and applications; Microsoft is not guaranteeing such parity as it tries to move customers to subscription-based cloud delivery.</p><p>[ 10 excellent new features in Windows Server 2012 R2 | For quick, smart takes on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]</p><p>The SP1 versions will allow Exchange 2013 and SharePoint 2013 to be installed on Windows Server 2012 R2. There will be fixes, improvements, and some schema updates, as expected.</p><p><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/get-ready-the-office-sharepoint-and-exchange-2013-sp1-service-packs-232007">Keep reading...</a></p>