End-of-Life (EOL) policy
Overview
TelcoBridges recognizes the desire of its business partners and their customers to both preserve their investments in TelcoBridges products and to reduce the uncertainty associated with new expenditures or with long-term planning.
However, it is the nature of technology and of the marketplace for change to occur, resulting in the appearance of new products and conversely the eventual disappearance of older products. This change is not always in a predictable, linear fashion and can be disruptive to organizations as they plan their operations and investments.
Recognizing this, TelcoBridges has developed an end-of-life (EOL) policy that is designed to provide the company’s business partners and their customers with predictability as well as peace of mind as one product life cycle ends and another begins. This end-of-life policy seeks to minimize and mitigate the effects of changes to product offerings and to assure business partners and their customers that they will be taken care of while availability and support for a given product are eventually phased out.
TelcoBridges’ approach to managing technological change
TelcoBridges’ commitment to preserve the investment that its partners and their customers have made in its products starts with an overall product design philosophy that is conscious of continuing changes in the marketplace.
This is borne out by the choice of third-party components that are included in TelcoBridges’ hardware products during their design phase. While designing its products, TelcoBridges takes into account the susceptibility of such components to be subject to end-of-life announcements themselves, as well as the ability of TelcoBridges to secure functionally equivalent alternatives from the same or alternate suppliers, such that the underlying functionality of the company’s products could remain sensibly unchanged following a modification of components.
Should it become necessary to declare end-of-life status for a TelcoBridges product, the company has developed an end-of-life policy that outlines the commitments that TelcoBridges’ business partners and their customers can expect. That elements and milestones of policy are described below.
End-of-Life process and phases
The TelcoBridges EOL policy generally follows the following process, as described in the table below. The process begins with the End of Life announcement, the date for which is indicated by the letter X. All subsequent milestones occur within the indicated number of calendar months from that date (X). Definitions of milestones are provided in the following section.
| Milestone | End-of-Life (EOL) announcement | End of Sale (EOS) announcement | End of production | End of hardware (HW) maintenance | End of software (SW) maintenance | End of service contracts for EOL product(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | X | X + 12 months | X + 15 months | X + 48 months | X + 48 months | X + 72 months |
Milestones and definitions
- End of Life (EOL) announcement: Date when a formal announcement is made by TelcoBridges and published on its web site at www.telcobridges.com. The end of life announcement lists the product(s) that is (are) to be discontinued and outlines the milestones (or timeframes) for the availability of follow-on purchases, technical support, repairs, etc.
- End of Sale (EOS) announcement: Date when EOL products are no longer orderable or visible on TelcoBridges’ price lists.
- End of production: Date when TelcoBridges no longer builds EOL products. The TelcoBridges customer support department will maintain stocks to fulfill Return Material Authorization (RMA) requirements.
- End of hardware (HW) maintenance: Date when TelcoBridges no longer provides bug fixes to hardware.
- End of software (SW) maintenance: Date when TelcoBridges no longer provides bug fixes to software.
- End of service contracts: Date when service contracts are no longer available for products covered by an EOL notice. Service contracts may be renewed to a period equivalent to the end-of-service contract milestone.
Applicability
This policy applies to all TelcoBridges products from January 1, 2010 onwards.
Status
As of March 10th, 2010, TelcoBridges has not declared end-of-life status and has no intention to do so for the foreseeable future.
While the company offers two core hardware platforms, based on CompactPCI and rackmount form factors, it remains committed to providing products based on both platforms to the marketplace.
Though TelcoBridges has stated publicly that it is focused on rackmount hardware as its platform of choice for new product development--since only that platform allows TelcoBridges to deliver on its goals of performance and system density--the fact that the vast majority of rackmount system components are shared with the company’s CompactPCI-based devices is a strong argument for the continued availability of CompactPCI offerings from TelcoBridges.
From a software application and development toolkit and perspective, both CompactPCI and rackmount platforms are equal citizens and will continue to benefit from advances made in the coming years. The company’s current software roadmap foresees the introduction of new features on both hardware platforms.