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Microsoft Extends Product Lifecycle
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has decided to extend product support on business and developer products effective June 1, 2004. Mainstream support remains unchanged at 5 years, extended support is greatly extended from 2 to 5 years and Online self-help support is extended from 8 to 10 years. I have to say kudos to Microsoft on this one."
"...Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Server and Tools Marketing..." Geez, how many VP's does Microsoft have???
Microsoft is slowly shifting its business toward "support" since software will inevitably become free.
Their Business leadership team is here
Their Board of Directors listingis here In case those links act up, scroll down using your arrow keys or whatever you use to scroll.
If you can't figure out an OS in 5 years, maybe you should reconsider the whole "computer" thing.
The thing you have to remember about Microsoft is that it, like almost any large company, is not monolithic. It is made up of a number of fiefdoms, some of which compete for the same resources (customers, money, prestige, etc) and are therefore at war with one another, the terms of which are defined by what is possible when both are part of a larger whole. This is why things like .NET made it to market. It was sold to the marketing department, the OS department, the Office development department, and the developer tools department (visual studio) with each one seeing it as something different.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
They seem to have the shortest product lifecycles i've ever seen.
.. :)
OTOH i'd have thought that it'd be in microsoft's interests to force people to upgrade by withdrawing support from win98 etc...
Maybe they really are scared
It's too bad RedHat won't do something similar. They have pitifully short product lifecycles.
I didn't know we let Bill Gates post as anonymous coward. That explains a lot actually.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Hear, hear!
I just about choked when I saw the word "company" and "98SE" in the same sentence, here in 2004.
I can see it happening on a couple of legacy systems spread around a company, but to have an entire company on it? Jesus - and I thought the company I worked for was behind!
Having online support on office tools for 10 years seems pretty good to me, but for developer tools it should be even longer.
Ever had to muck around in a 10 year old project (someone elses at that), where the tools used to build it have been deemed obsolete for 5 years? Not fun.
Every time they do something bad its because they are an evil monopoly. Every time they do something good its because they fear linux. I think I'm starting to understand.
You just know they forsee needing to support Longhorn for the Longhaul.
flinging poop since 1969
disagree with the statement "kudos for Microsoft". What 11 out of the first 13 replies to the post do not seem to realize is that the post is talking about O/S support not a religion. Personally I find the MS developers site informative, simple and free. I wonder how many of the 11 have actually tried to use it (gasp, some of us still have customers who use NT4). Oh how I wish I hadn't squandered my mod points.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
WinXP...
DId you know you could be court-martialed for running WinXP on a DOD system up until september of last year?
then, microsoft offered the gov 498,000 licenses for about $2.00 (i'm not really sure exactly, might be as much as $10) each and the official word from the people in charge of evaluating software changes from !!can not be secured!! to "um, try not to use it in a sensitivity critical environment"
Great for me as a security contractor, BAD for me as a citizen.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
If you force customers to upgrade too quick, you risk loosing customers. If you let them have the same shit forever, you don't make money. I mean, as you pointed out with Rhat, it is just an insanely short support cycle. They got knocked out of the running for our offical supported Linux for that reason. We don't want to have to upgrade every year. Money isn't the real issue, we have no problem with yearly support contracts, it's the idea that we need to move to a new OS version every singe year.
The length of support is the reason that you don't see much shit over the 2k/XP thing. I mean if people were forced to upgrade to a new OS to the tune of $100-$300 (depending on the deal you get) after one year, we'd all be pissed. However 2k is still supported, and will remain so for a few more years. So we get XP on new systems, and keep 2k on existing systems.
Now personally, I think they are extending it a bit too long. After 5-6 years, you need to be thinking about moving to a new OS, for desktops at least and even for servers. I mean commodity hardware just isn't all that reliable at that amount of time. Try getting a Dell warantee for 6+ years. Big iron is different, you buy a mainframe, it better last 20 years, but little x86 desktops and servers really need to be looking at being EOL'd after 6 years max, and the OS likewise.
But, I'll take it. I'd rather have longer support than shorter support.
I can think of a couple right off the bat:
* XP doesn't hang when shutting down (at least in my experience)
* Multi-user profiles
* Built-in USB 2.0 support (SP1?)
* System Restore (buggy though it can be, it's better than nothing.)
* MMC
I'm no fan of XP, but the issues and capabilities listed above make supporting XP (and 2000) a lot easier for us than 98 was.
Anyone else cynical enough to immediately think that this is just to stop people considering their options when they realise that their support's suddenly run out?
There's plenty of businesses out there running older versions of windows who might look elsewhere rather than upgrade if there was no support.
That said, better software support is probably generally a good thing.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/
So that's about 1 VP per 300-400 employees (not sure if that includes all international divisions).
Corporate VP's are usually junior VP's in charge of an individual division.
Senior VP's manage a group of divisions (say all the Windows product development divisions). There are about 20 Senior VP's at Microsoft.
The Group VP's are the big honchos who manage, say, all of product development, or marketing. Look like there are three Group VP's.
This can be contrasted sharply with Linux dists like SuSE or RH. Good luck trying to find a commercial Linux that features some level of free support five years on. A year seems to be your lot in life without paying somebody more money. RH9 may even take the prize for the fastest End Of Lifed commercial OS ever. It must have certainly come as a surprise to those who bought it Near The End that their new OS was practically obsolete. Perhaps OSs should carry an expiry date sticker.
Naturally, technically competant people can Google for support after the date. But this does nothing to help inexperienced users keep their machines up to date and safe from the latest exploits. Neither does it help enterprises who *must* pay for 24/7 support and for whom the support bill is part of the TCO.
Even vendors are faced with a dilema when supporting an OS with a short life span. Do they support end of life'd OSs with all the issues that entails, or do they only ever support the latest and greatest and confuse the hell out of their customers? It's hard enough already to ship a driver or a game for Linux and the rapidly moving target makes it nigh impossible to do in a satisfactory manner.
Is this step really suprising?
No, because their very own bugs force them to obey the wishes off their customers: customers seem to use OS software longer that MS think they should, hence they tried to control the lifecycle by ceasing support. What is the consequence of this?
Millions of unpatched machines out there spreading viruses and spam all over the internet. And what should Microsoft's reaction to that inconvenient side effect of using MS products be: "Sorry, no more support!"?!? That should easily make for the biggest PR desaster in corporate history. They simple realised that and adjusted support to the longer lifetime that their OSes unfortunately have in the wild.
That is quite incorrect. The software wasn't Common Criteria certified up to that point, but you could run it.
The ability to run/not run software in a DoD environment is controlled mostly by mission - there are very few applications you 'can't' run. There is a person in every military organization called a DAA "Designated Accrediting Authority" who can issue an ATO "Authority to Operate" for anything he/she feels like doing. This person is usually the commander of an installation or organization, and will usually be of 0-6 or higher rank.
If you run something in the DoD without getting a DAA signoff, you are screwed. If the software is insecure, the DAA and the IA "Information Assurance" staff are the ones who are screwed.
The ultimate expression of the DAA's ATO is the DITSCAP. The DITSCAP is basically a huge document showing you did due diligence in security testing your software. You are supposed to list all threats in there, and make value judgements as to whether they are deal breakers or acceptable, and what steps you are taking to mitigate.
The DAA signature on ATO means that that commander read the DITSCAP, accepts the risks, and will run the software/system in question. No courts martial. No UCMJ at all.
As to your other assertion about Microsoft giving software away to the Army, realize that we (meaning Army installations) pay a tax each year out of our budgets to finance the Microsoft ELA with the Army, which is costing the Army precisely $151.00 each bundled desktop, which includes Office and the OS, plus a server CAL. Either way, that's a long way from $10.
There is a Powerpoint on the topic (opens up fine in OOO) located here. You can also go to the Army Small Computer Program site if you want to see how the ELA is implemented in real life.
Please stop lying to these people. Thank you.
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