New Microsoft support scheme scraps decade pledge

More than a month ago, Microsoft quietly added a new support policy that dropped the company's decade of technical support for an open-ended product lifetime that could be terminated at Microsoft's discretion.

Wes Miller, analyst with Directions on Microsoft, viewed the new policy -- dubbed "Modern Lifecycle" -- as a glimpse into the future of support from the Redmond, Wash. company.

"For more than a year, since Microsoft talked about LTSB [Long-term Servicing Branch], we've all been wondering what the plan was," said Miller, referring to the Windows 10 release track available only to enterprise customers. "There was the usual 5+5 support with LTSB-style releases, and then there was everything else. Now, we know how support works for everything else."

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