Reading Roadmap Illustrations

Roadmap illustrations summarize software version and service pack releases, retirements, and support status by year. Shown here is an example illustration for the Office suite from a past issue of the Enterprise Software Roadmap. Each row of the illustration lists a software version and a service pack (SP) level (if relevant); for example, Office 2010 SP1, Office 2013 (initial release, before any service packs), and Office 2013 SP1.

Version support retirement dates are listed where known. For example, Extended support ended for Office 2003 SP3 on Apr. 8, 2014. Office 2010 SP2 will transition from Mainstream to Extended support on Oct. 13, 2015.

Organizations should also pay attention to the release dates of service packs and their associated support end dates. To qualify for product support, an installation must generally be running the most recent service pack, but customers receive a roughly one- to two-year grace period to deploy each service pack. For example, support ends for Office 2013’s initial release (without any service packs) on Apr. 14, 2015, the end of the grace period for Office 2013 SP1. After that date, Office 2013 installations will require Office 2013 SP1 for support.