Update To Microsoft Dynamics Support Lifecycle
All That Jazz...
I have been reading the news articles from our Convergence 2007 conference in Copenhagen this week, when I spotted that we have improved our Support policy for our products. We have just brought our Dynamics product support policy into line with the rest of our Business and Development software by offering 5-years mainstream support, followed by an additional 5-years extended support. That's right, if you have the relevant support agreements in place with us you will be able to get at least 10-years product support, providing customers with increased flexibility to either keep their existing products or upgrade as they desire. This exceeds the industry practices that business management software vendors have typically offered.
So what is the difference between mainstream support and extended support phases? I found this table in the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ.
Support Provided
Mainstream Support Phase
Extended Support Phase
Paid support (per-incident, per hour, and others)
Yes
Yes
Security update support
Yes
Yes
Non-security hotfix support
Yes
Requires extended hotfix agreement, purchased within 90 days of mainstream support ending.
No-charge incident support
Yes
No
Warranty claims
Yes
No
Design changes and feature requests
Yes
No
Product-specific information that is available by using the online Microsoft Knowledge Base
Yes
Yes
Product-specific information that is available by using the Support site at Microsoft Help and Support to find answers to technical questions
Yes
Yes
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