End-of-Life Policy

Products reach the end of their Product Life Cycle for a number of reasons. These reasons may be due to market demands, technology innovation and development driving changes in the product or the products simply mature over time and are replaced by functionally richer technology. While this is an established part of the overall product life cycle, NOAD recognizes that end-of-life milestones often prompt companies to review the way in which such end-of-sale and end-of-life milestones impact the NOAD products in their environments. With that in mind, we have set out below NOAD's end-of-life policy to help customers better manage their end-of-life transition and to understand the role that NOAD can play in helping to migrate to current/higher product versions.
 
This End-of-Life Policy is effective as of April 1, 2009, and applies to announcements made on or after April 1, 2009. This End-of-Life Policy does not apply to products subject to an End-of-Life and/or End-of-Sale announcement issued prior to April 1, 2009
This policy is intended as a "guideline" as NOAD reserves the right to treat each product line independently, or agree to new or different terms with individual parties. NOAD also reserves the right to change this policy at any time without notice. The general policy guidelines are as follows:

  1. As a general rule, NOAD will provide 6 months' notice of the affected product's end-of-sale (EOS) date and/or the last day when the affected product can be ordered. This notice will appear on our website (http://www.noadbi.com/) and we encourage you to visit this site regularly as it contains useful information regarding NOAD's end-of-life (EOL) program. 
  2. 6 months after the affected product’s EOS date the affected product starts an end-of Life (EOL) transition period. 
  3. During the EOL transition period of 6 months, customer will receive maintenance and support on the affected product as per existing customer support agreements.
  4. At the end of the EOL transition period, the Limited Support Plan will begin. During the LSP period, which lasts 6 months, NOAD will still help it’s customers but will not create software fixes to solve problems after the product is EOL and the LSP program was activated; it will be necessary for a Customer to upgrade to a non-EOL software version to correct a reported problem and or for the purpose of migration to a supported NOAD product. The Customer must be current on maintenance to receive this extended Support.

General Software maintenance support Lifecycle will be as follows:
 
a. Major Release (example EQM 3 -> EQM 4) after a release date of a Major release NOAD will provide maintenance and support for a minimum of 2 years including bug fixes, maintenance releases, work arounds, or patches for critical bugs reported via the NOAD support site.
 
b. Minor Release (example product 4.1 -> product 4.2) after a release date of a minor release NOAD will provide maintenance and support for 12 months within the Major release version timeframe.
 
c. Service pack (example product 4.1.1 -> product 4.1.2) NOAD will provide maintenance and support on the current service pack and the previous released service pack
 
You will need to ensure that you have a current and fully paid support contract with NOAD. Please contact your Account Manager regarding fees payable during the end-of-life period so that we can support you right through the end-of-life transition period.
 
Explanation of some of the terms that we have used in this notice:

End Of Life (EOL): A process that guides the final business operations associated with the product life cycle. The end-of-life (EOL) process consists of a series of technical and business milestones and activities that, once completed, make a product obsolete. By that time it will have been replaced by a newer version or other product with similar functionality. Once obsolete, the product is no longer sold, manufactured, improved, repaired, or maintained.
 
End-Of-Sale date (EOS): The final date the product can be ordered through NOAD point-of-sale mechanisms. After this date the product can no longer be purchased.
 
Limited Support Plan (LSP): During the LSP period NOAD will still help it’s customers but will not create software fixes to solve problems after the product is EOL and the LSP program was activated; it may be necessary for a Customer to upgrade to a non-EOL software version to correct a reported problem and or for the purpose of migration to a supported NOAD product. The Customer must be current on maintenance to receive this extended Support.
 
Software Maintenance support: The time period that NOAD will bring out software maintenance releases or bug fixes related to current software products. 6 months after the EOL date, NOAD Engineering will no longer develop, repair, maintain, or test the Software Product.

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