April 2011 end of support for Notes/Domino 7.0.x announced
August 12 2009
A few of the blogs picked this up from yesterday's IBM announcement, but nary a peep in terms of commentary...
Effective on the dates listed below, IBM will withdraw support from the following product release(s) licensed under the IBM International Program License Agreement:Notes/Domino 7 originally shipped in September, 2005. We made this decision a couple of months ago...at a time when the 7.x codestream had already become the least-prevalent version of Notes/Domino active in market today (8.x is the majority/most prevalent, followed by 6.5, followed by 7). With upgrades to 8.x well underway, a solid 7.0.4 maintenance release, and an 18-month runway before end of mainstream support for 7.x, it feels like the right time to make the call.
5724-E62 7.0.1 04/30/11 IBM Lotus Notes/Domino
5724-E62 7.0.3 04/30/11 IBM Lotus Notes/Domino
5724-E62 7.0.4 04/30/11 IBM Lotus Notes/Domino
5724-E62 7.0.0 04/30/11 IBM Lotus Notes/Domino
Link: IBM.com: Software withdrawal: IBM Lotus Notes, Domino, and Enterprise Integrator 7.0.x >
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- 2
Henry Ferlauto | 8/12/2009 11:03:08 PM
Hard to argue with the logic. There's plenty of lead time and a 5½ year run is pretty good in my book.
What's the approx. breakdown of 6.5 vs. 7.x. vs. 8.x customers?
About a year ago I would have unscientifically said about an even split, 1/3 each. Today I would of course say more 8.x, but I would not be able to say which ones are upgrading faster.
- 3
Jean-Yves rEMY | 8/13/2009 1:32:37 AM
La fin est proche pour les anciennes version (6.5,7.0,8.x)
LA version 9 se rapproche prochainement, non ?
The end is near for the old version (6.5,7.0,8. x)
Version 9 is approaching soon, right?
- 4
Michael Wenn http://Teamstudio.com | 8/13/2009 2:41:04 AM
If anyone reading this news is looking for a automated solution for testing applications to make them ready from R4 - 8.5 and everything inbetween then please feel free to email me.
- 5
Henry Ferlauto | 8/13/2009 5:05:48 AM
Ed - Please correct me if I'm off on anything here...
@3 - Version 8.x is still current, and therefore no end of support date has been announced. You will not see and end date until:
(1) Version 8.5.x (the next major version) is released
(2) Version 8.0.x has been on maintenance for a certain period of time and is sufficiently "outdated" and a large number of customers are already upgraded beyond it.
In theory, by April 2011 Notes & Domino 9.x should be nearing release. (Major releases are about 18 months apart. 8.5 is due late this year.)
Also, if like when 6.5.x was removed from (free) support, you can purchase support contracts for an additional two (2) years, which would keep you going until April 2013.
Even without the end of support, the features in 8.5.x should more than motivate an organization to upgrade, as with DAOS your company can save a TON of disk space, not to mention the CPU utilization goes down. One of the few software upgrardes in life that actual "hard" costs can be measured.
- 6
Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/13/2009 7:43:31 AM
@3 we have not formally announced a timeframe for "9" or whatever we call it, but I think you'll start hearing more about it early in 2010. Because we have moved to the "agile' development methodology, you see more incremental features coming in point releases, e.g 8.0.1, 8.5.1, 8.5.2.
@5 No timeline set for ending support in the 8.x or 8.5.x versions. We haven't even entertained the conversation. But the release later this year is 8.5.1, not 8.5 (which shipped in January 2009). I think you say that but your "8.5 is due late this year" is what I'm clarifying.
- 7
Jean-Yves rEMY | 8/13/2009 10:54:33 AM
@5 - J'ai omis de préciser que je parlais des logiciels, mais pas des maintenances de ces logiciels.
La 6.5 n'est plus mise à jour
La 7.0.4 devrait être la dernière version release 7, à confirmer par Ed
La 8.0.2 est la derniére release des V8.0.x
({ Link })
Il reste la 8.5.x qui va donc vivre pendant 5-6 ans.
Entre temps, la V9 sortira.IBM aura donc ses 2 versions de produit à maintenir comme avant : la v8.5.x et la v9.
****google translate****sorry****
@ 5 - I failed to mention that I was talking about software, but not the maintenance of such software.
The 6.5 is no longer updated
The 7.0.4 should be the last release version 7, to be confirmed by Ed
The 8.0.2 is the latest release of V8.0.x
({ Link } )
It remains the 8.5.x which will live for 5-6 years.
Meanwhile, the V9 release.
IBM will have 2 versions of its product to keep on as before: the v8.5.x and v9.
- 8
Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 8/13/2009 3:42:06 PM
"nary a peep in terms of commentary"?
Come on Ed, I was vociferous in my praise (in an understated British kinda way) - "that adds up to a 6-year lifespan for this release of the product - impressive commitment to customer investment protection I would say" ;-)
Seriously though, I think the long term support for multiple versions of Notes/Domino is pretty amazing - giving real stability and business value to the customers.
Certainly compared to the opposition, this support for three levels of the software, released over 4 years, all of which can run on the same hardware/storage/OS versions (in fact, often running faster or with greater scalability in newer versions) is a brilliant story to tell.
- 9
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/13/2009 6:23:24 PM
I dunno... Lotus doesn't support their platforms for as long as Microsoft does. Windows XP, after all, was released in October 2001. Microsoft will continue to support it all the way through July of 2010, reaching almost 9 years of support for customer investment. Even in spite of all the versions of Windows that have come out in the mean...
Oh, wait...
Crap.
Never mind.
- 10
Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 8/13/2009 7:56:58 PM
I think Stuart said enough in his original post....
If not, then here goes (in my best Murray Walker commentary accent)....
With over a 6 year lifespan ND 7 provided quite a performance bump on the server (according to some random guy on the web { Link } ). For developers it added a very flexible web service design element that allowed Domino application data to be easily accessed from other systems (BlackBerry, etc), continuing IBM's long held mantra of interoperability.
(engage sarcastic mode)
With the addition of DDM administrators can now fully tax and test their email systems with a constant barrage of statistics and other information ;)
The client (apparently) added some new features too ({ Link } ) but most organizations didn't deploy it as it looked exactly the same as R6.x and the feature set was a tad stale for such a major release.
(end sarcastic mode)
OK, so I'm being a bit sarcastic here (yes, I am now a yank, but they didn't take "that" from me). For the server side it as a fantastic performance leap (continued in 8.x) but the client was a belly flop. Hence your internal numbers citing it was 3rd on the list when the decision was made.
- 11
Bonj | 3/7/2011 2:51:01 PM
Wow, it has been a good run. Not as all in our group had hoped, but being in a consolidated environment, where we don't always control our own destiny, we have been left to the side on 7.0.2. Apps have been happily purring away for years, at least until recently, and it took some unwanted human intervention to upset things, and several days to get things corrected.
Needless to say we have been looking to move to 8.5.x for some time, prior to the human factor incident. The end of support for 7.0.x finally getting some attention for us to move forward. The dilemma is that those supporting our 7.0.2 apps want to make the jump to a fresh 8.5.2 environment and start with a clean slate as the 7.0.2 environment has had some issues do to the way it was setup from the beginning. Those supporting the server environment just want to upgrade it to 8.0, as there are other 8.0 servers that they maintain. It would seem if anything it would be worth taking our 7.0.2 to 8.5.2 and look at upgrading the 8.0 to 8.5.2, but once again we do not control our destiny. Any cases or reasoning that one might be able to share that could possibly sway one set on an outcome of 8.0 would be appreciated. We are licensed for 8.5.2, so licensing is not an issue. Thanks.
Over a year away and as you say 7 is not so common, but in our world, many are on 7, because we put them there and are working to move some to 8.5, well 851 by the time they decide.
But the general interest is to go to 8.5 which we haven't seen since the r5 upgrade era such great interest.