Broader support for bigger bucks?

August 29, 2006

In an interesting move, Microsoft will extend support for older software products based on some kind of per-machine fee, as opposed to its past standard of a flat fee. As a spokeswoman for MS states such a move will give customers greater 'choice" over when to upgrade to a newer product, this is what the change entails:

has
already changed its support policies to offer five years of
mainstream support and an additional five years of more limited, paid
support, known as "extended support," on its business and developer
products.

Custom support is what kicks in after that. The company has
offered custom support in the past, such as for Windows NT 4. The company
initially pledged only one year of support but later extended that to two
years.

The article reveals customers must already be paying for 'premier support," then pay the 'custom support fees" for the product in question.

It is curious while MS admits their change is customer-related, neither MS nor this article reveals the real reasons why customers choose not to upgrade to a newer product, especially when the article does state that the custom support route costs much more than changing over to a newer product. Perhaps this shows that more businesses cannot afford to upgrade to newer OS's and products, especially under the former assumed 'obsolescence" timetable of about 4 years for computers and associated software usage. Perhaps this also insinuates end-user's concerns that newer products will not be as user-friendly as older versions; this may also imply businesses and other end-users try to avoid the additional learning curve associated with learning new features from newer software'”something businesses would likely have to pay for in terms of training employees to some degree on newer software. This decision is slightly surprising, as MS used to be king of announcing when support would end for a certain OS, for example, and their attitude was 'that was that"; one either had to live with the bugs and headaches of the older version, or accept the newer offering in spite of one's reservations. What surprises no one is that MS does not enumerate specifics, such as how much their 'custom support" will cost the business in question, nor does it or the article elaborate on how much additional projected income this means for MS.

React below, especially if you can elaborate more on some of these associated fees that match a certain product and support option, or certainly to provide more information on anything this article fails to spell out regarding specifics not mentioned here.

Source: C|net