See also:
http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/i/planning/upgrade/suptschedule.html
What this means to you:
- Perhaps some vendors who drag their stinking feet will finally upgrade
and get you a version of their software that will work on a current
release and not just one that was released six years ago. If not, do as I
did and exercise your feet and move to another vendor.
- When you move beyond 5.4 you should read all follow on Memo to Users
('-both-' 6.1 and 7.1 at this time), especially anything dealing with
ANZOBJCVN. Use that time to prepare for a resolution for this.
- A new release, judging by the above website, generally comes out 6
months to a year after the end of support for X-3. Does that mean spring
or fall COMMON of 2014 for the follow on to 7.1?
Sure, there will be those who argue "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". But
these people bury their heads in the sand and ignore all ptf cover letters
because they don't want to know that it's broke. Or, they'll point out
some new fix available in a newer release and say we don't have that
problem since there's no matching fix for their release. However, it's
not necessarily that they don't have the problem, it's just that IBM won't
bother to fix a release that's no longer supported.
Oh well, you have plenty of time to budget for the change. Just
understand what the change means and get it all into your budget.
Rob Berendt
midrange.com
