• Chart: Product Support Life-Cycle Phases

The Directions on Microsoft Enterprise Software Roadmap summarizes current and planned versions of Microsoft's most important enterprise products. The Roadmap provides a single reference for Microsoft customers and partners who need to answer basic planning questions such as the following:

• What upgrades will I probably get if I cover Office on an Enterprise Agreement this year?
• When will support end for Windows 2000 Professional?
• When should my company's software product be ready to run on the next version of SQL Server?
• Can I deploy Outlook 2003 before I deploy Exchange Server 2003?
• When should I start training our consultants on the next version of Project?

What This Report Provides

This report supplies information about support retirement dates for past product versions and summaries of features and release dates for current and planned product versions. This information can help Microsoft customers and partners schedule migrations, plan evaluations, arrange training, and budget for purchases.

Planning for Product Retirements

The information provided for past product versions should help organizations prepare for product retirements. Microsoft divides a product's life cycle into three phases—Mainstream, Extended, and Online Self-Help. (See the chart "Product Support Life-Cycle Phases".)

During the Mainstream phase, Microsoft offers the broadest set of product support options and maintains the product with hotfixes. Service packs are generally released in this phase, but the company might stop releasing service packs for a product well before Mainstream support ends. For products nearing the end of Mainstream support, the company might instead release update rollups, integration-tested packages of selected fixes for the highest-priority bugs and security vulnerabilities. The Mainstream support phase for a product version lasts five years, or until two years after a successor version has shipped, whichever is longer.

In the Extended support phase, which follows the Mainstream phase, Microsoft provides support for a fee (including custom hotfixes, if included in the customer's support contract) and free hotfixes for some security vulnerabilities. However, it does not provide free nonsecurity hotfixes and does not issue further service packs. In the final phase, Online Self-Help, little support is available other than information at Microsoft's Web site. The Extended support phase lasts five years after the end of Mainstream, and the Online Self-Help phase lasts 10 years or more after a product's general availability.

Note that the three phases only pertain to the availability of product support and software updates, not to the availability of product media (such as full product downloads and CD-ROMs) or new licenses. Microsoft sometimes discontinues media or licenses for a product version before the end of Mainstream support for the version. For example, Windows 2000 licenses were discontinued Apr. 1, 2004, even though Mainstream support does not end until 2005. However, volume license customers can obtain licenses for Windows 2000 and other older product versions by purchasing a license for a newer version (e.g., Windows XP) and downgrading it to the desired version.

Preparing for Upcoming Releases

This report also summarizes recent (through 2004) and planned major releases of Microsoft products, listing major features and important dependencies on other products.

All information on future releases is our interpretation of the most credible public sources. In general, our information about a planned release will become more accurate as its release date approaches. However, Microsoft does not endorse this report, and its product plans are subject to change at any time.

How This Report Is Organized

The Enterprise Software Roadmap is divided into four chapters, one for each of Microsoft's major software markets. Chapters are broken into families of related products. We provide a brief description of each product's use, and then summarize past, new, and planned versions of the product.

The "Resources" section lists past Directions on Microsoft reports and useful Microsoft Web pages about particular products and versions. The Directions reports appeared in our weekly news analysis, Update, or as separate Research Reports. Both types of reports are a good starting point for further research on a product, and they list additional resources at Microsoft and elsewhere. This report also lists Microsoft Web pages that are important for tracking product releases and retirements.

The search engine, accessible at the top right of each page, provides a quick way to locate a particular product or version.

Information in Product Entries

The bulk of this report describes released or planned Microsoft products. The information provided for past versions and planned versions differs.

For past versions, we list the following:

Version name. The name and any relevant code names for the product version.

Current service pack. The most recent service pack for the product version and its release date. To get full support for a product version from Microsoft, customers must generally be running the current service pack. However, Microsoft will support a product version with an older service pack for up to 12 months (in some cases, 24 months) after the release date of the next service pack. For example, it will likely support Office 2003 SP1 for 12 to 24 months after the release date of Office 2003 SP2.

Release history. This listing of a product version's official release date and the release dates of its service packs serves as a rough guide to how frequently a product group releases updates to a product version.

Mainstream support ends. Microsoft provides full support for a product version at least through this date.

For planned product versions, we list the following:

Version name. The name and any relevant code names for the product version.

Goals. A summary of the new features of the product version. For future versions, the features described are our interpretation of public statements by Microsoft; Microsoft has not committed to these features and could change them at any time.

Estimated release date. Our estimate of the product's release date based on publicly available information.

Related products. Major dependencies or system requirements that could affect migration plans to a particular product version. This is not an exhaustive list of system requirements, however. A more complete list of system requirements for a product will typically appear in Directions on Microsoft reports on that product.