Recently Micro Focus made changes to support policies and lifecycles for Micro Focus products. These changes have made a positive impact on GroupWise customers. In case you missed these changes I want to make sure you are aware of them and what they mean for you.

If you haven't seen the Product Support Lifecycle Policy please take a few moments to view it here:

 https://www.microfocus.com/support-and-services/product-support-lifecycle-policy/

Collaboration products (GroupWise/Vibe) fall under the Application and Software Services definition.

A couple of things every customer should be aware of. There are two main phases of the Product Lifecycle. Mainstream and Extended. This is not new, other than they used to be named General and Extended. For applications, like GroupWise & Vibe, the Mainstream support is a minimum of three years from release date. For customers active on maintenance they are entitled to all the benefits available with a Maintenance and Support plan. To view all the benefits please view the policy listed above. Most notably, this is the Lifecycle phase where you get Defect Support, Security Updates and we continue to add new features and take Enhancement requests. As an example, when GroupWise "Wasatch"  ships in the 2H 2017, it will restart the Mainstream support dates and have a minimum of 3 years in Mainstream support.

Once Mainstream Support ends, a major product version enters the Extended Support phase. During a product's Extended Support phase, customers continuing to pay Maintenance on the current version of the product will receive access to existing software updates, technical support and self-help resources.

This is a key difference that I want to make GroupWise customers aware of as it is a change to your benefit. If you are current on maintenance you will receive access to technical support while a product is in Extended support. In the past that required purchasing an extended support contract.  That is no longer the case.

Important! There is no longer any defect resolution or patches released for the product in extended support, but you can still access technical support. Extended Support is intended to be an interim solution for customers who are moving to the most current version of a product, but need additional time to make the transition. If you call into support for a product in Extended Support, there may be a fix already available or we may fix the the problem reported, but it will most likely require you to upgrade to the current version of the product in Mainstream support to get that fix.

For GroupWise customers, this means when Wasatch is released it will start a new 3 year minimum Mainstream support lifecycle on the Wasatch version of GroupWise. GroupWise 2014 and 2014 R2 will eventually go into Extended support at the end of their Mainstream lifecycle. If you are current on maintenance you will still be able to receive support on GroupWise 2014 and 2014 R2 until you make the transition to Wasatch.

For more information on current support dates for GroupWise see the Lifecylce page here:  https://www.microfocus.com/lifecycle/?term=GroupWise#support_details

I think this change in the extended support policy will add great value to our GroupWise customers and assures them that they will continue to receive support.