Support Life Cycle Extended for NT, Exchange 5.5

New support options have been added to Microsoft’s product life cycle for business software, and previous arrangements for getting bug fixes late in a product’s life have been codified, formalized, and extended. These modifications to the product life cycle, announced in Mar. 2005, give legacy products, such as Windows NT 4.0 and Exchange 5.5, the same 10 years of assisted support as newer products. However, the price for such support will rise each year, thus encouraging customers to upgrade rather than continue to use products long after Microsoft wants to support them.

The changes formalize the process and fee schedule for companies that want to continue to get bug fixes during the Extended support phase, during which nonsecurity fixes are available only for a fee. Microsoft has also released additional details about fee-based assisted-support options (contrasted with free, self-help support, available from Microsoft’s Web site, for example) called Custom support, for products that are at the end of the regular life cycle.