Re: V4.4 Support Availability -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi,

Well I copied this note to IBM, with the thought of getting them to think a 
bit about what they were doing, and as you might of expected, an IBM Exec 
called me.

As it turns out, "end of support" is the date that IBM will stop shipping 
the release (which is unfortunate for customers that use the *M36 
environment"), and the date that IBM will stop accepting APARs for the 
release, however it is not the real "end of support date".

IBM will answer questions, and research suspected defects for an additional 
year, but they will not build fixes.  The solution at that point may be to 
move onto the next release.

In addition, $$$$$, for a fee, IBM will promise to also build fixes, at 
their discretion, for some additional months.  I don't see customers 
adopting this in droves, given the ability to answer questions, but this 
should be sufficient support for a user that wants to skip V4R5.

Al

 >
 >5/31/01 is the correct date, and IMHO, this is too soon.  IBM should extend
 >the life of V4R4 until the release after V4R5 is out and generally accepted
 >to be stable.
 >
 >Sometimes IBM listens to me, and sometimes they don't.  When I told them not
 >to ship V3R1... - ah well, the rest is history.
 >
 >Al
 >
 >
 >Can anyone tell me how long IBM will continue to provide support for v4.4?
 >I saw on an IBM website (I forget which one) that 5/31/01 is the end of
 >program services for v4.4.  I called the IBM help line and they told me that
 >they hadn't heard of any date for the ending of support and if there was
 >one, it wouldn't be this year.  Then I saw something on this list that
 >referred to support ending in May.  Who is right?  Is there a difference
 >between "program services" and help line support?
 >
 >(We are planning on upgrading, but we were hoping to put it off until the
 >last half of the year.  If support is ending sooner than that, we need to
 >re-evaluate our plans.)
 >
 >Thanks!
 >
 >Janell Haskins
 >Programmer/Analyst
 >Knit-Rite, Inc.
 >jhaskins@knitrite.com



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Al Barsa, Jr. - Account for Midrange-L
Barsa Consulting Group, LLC.    
400 > 390

Phone:          914-251-1234
Fax:            914-251-9406
http://www.barsaconsulting.com
http://www.taatool.com

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