Microsoft Leads the Way with Support Lifecycle Policy for Online Services for Business and Developers



In keeping with Microsoft’s relentless focus on providing customers and partners with predictable and consistent support, Microsoft is announcing a Support Lifecycle policy for Online Services for Business and Developers. With this new policy, the company is leading the way in the online services market, where currently few policies for support exist.

“We wanted to provide the same level of comprehensive and predictable Support Lifecycle policies for our online services as we currently provide for our on-premise products. This new policy enables our customers to plan for changes and maximize their investments in our online services,” said Jared Proudfoot, Director, Microsoft Services.

Policy Highlights

The Support Lifecycle Policy for Microsoft Online Services is effective as of January 25th, 2011, and is only applicable to Online Services for Business and Developers.

The new policy offers three key features:

  1. Support availability:
    Microsoft Support services will be available for the duration of the customer’s agreement with Microsoft for the Online Service.

  2. Consistent, predictable support:
    With the release of this new policy, Microsoft is introducing a new Support Lifecycle concept called disruptive change. Disruptive change refers to non-security changes that require administrator intervention, client updates, data migration, or significant user experience changes.

    Microsoft will provide a minimum of 12 months prior notification for events which are deemed disruptive changes.

  3. Service continuity and migration:
    Microsoft will provide a minimum of 12 months prior notification before ending a Business and Developer Online Service. Microsoft will retain customer data for a minimum of 30 days to facilitate customer migrations or renewal activities prior to the deprovisioning of the Online Service.

By providing customers with clear support timelines, the Support Lifecycle Policy for Online Services for Business and Developers will enable our customers to benefit fully from the dynamism of online services.

For additional information, please visit the FAQ section of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle web site. If you have other specific questions, please contact your Microsoft Account representative.

Microsoft Support Lifecycle

The Microsoft Support Lifecycle (MSL) policy provides transparent, predictable information regarding the support lifecycle of Microsoft products.

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Last Review : March 15, 2013