New Support Policy for Online Services

New online services support life-cycle policies specify how much notice customers will get before a major change in Microsoft-hosted services that could disrupt service or force updates of on-premises systems. The new policies affect Microsoft-hosted services including Microsoft Online Services (such as Exchange Online) as well as Windows Azure and the upcoming Office 365. The new policies provide consistency and predictability for customers; however, the 12-month notification policy for a “disruptive change” and the policy for services termination may leave some existing customer concerns unaddressed.

Service Policies Give a Minimum 12-Month Notice

In general, Microsoft’s support life-cycle policies specify how long the company will offer services such as software updates and break/fix support for a product version. Under the new support life-cycle policies for Online Services, Microsoft-hosted services will be supported for the duration of a customer’s agreement.

However, Microsoft has the right to make what it calls a “disruptive change” to an online service with a minimum12-month notice. Microsoft broadly defines a disruptive change as any change to a service that “requires significant customer action whether in the form of administrator intervention, substantial changes to the user experience, data migration, or required updates to client software.” An example could be when a PC upgrade is needed before certain Online Services features can be extended to end users. The policy applies to “regular maintenance and service updates” but not to security problems, which are immediately addressed.