Microsoft Extends Mainstream Product Support To Ten-Year Minimum

The news came in what appeared to be a throw-away line by Microsoft Corporate Vice President Andy Lees during his Tech Ed keynote Tuesday morning. "We are extending support as part of our new product support life cycle up from seven years to a minimum of ten years for all of our business software," said Lees, who heads marketing for all the Windows Server products.

Under the previous policy,customers got a maximum seven years of support, and now get a minimum of ten years. The speech was otherwise devoted to SQL Server security and migration enhancements. The change kicks off June 1 and will cover only Microsoft products still covered by the existing "mainstream" option. Thus Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98 and Windows 95, will not be covered by the change,according to Microsoft.

Attendees were bullish on the news. Corporate customers were irritated when Microsoft said it would stop support for Windows 98 in 2004. After an outcry it extended that product support till 2006. (See CRN.)

If Windows 98 and NT 4.0 were covered by the change, it would be a much bigger story for enterprise customers. "We still have a ton of NT 4 in our shop even though we've upgraded to 2000," said a network administrator for a large healthcare concern who declined to be named. "You'll never get rid of all of it." He added however, that most hackers have moved on to target newer versions of the operating system, so security patches might not be a huge issue.

At the Windows Server 2003 launch last spring, Microsoft estimated that a whopping 60 percent of its Windows Server base was still on NT 4.

Chris Barnash, director of strategic platforms of CheckFree, Norcross, Georgia liked the direction. "It provides customer with a more long-term vision of what Microsoft is trying to do for us. The more forward-thinking the vendor the more we can plan our own implementations as it helps us formulate our own plans for migrating to new technologies," Barnash said.

Microsoft has been under fire not only for support policies but being heavy-handed in its attempt to get customers to upgrade their volume licenses, many of which are up for renewal at the end of June. The company is quietly exploring pay-as-you go options for incremental purchases and even a "SuperCAL" that would bundle client access licenses to more server products at an attractive price. Microsoft has denied plans for a "SuperCAL, but sources say the topic is under discussion.

Additional Reporting By Rochelle Gardner