Discontinuance of Call Acceptance on Inactive Products

[moby91]

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview ... wg21499358
Business Analytics Customer Success & Support Announces Discontinuance of Call Acceptance on Inactive Product Versions

News

Abstract
While older versions of IBM Cognos products have reached end of support and no longer have defect corrections developed, we have continued to accept technical support calls, ensuring that companies can resolve the questions and issues they encounter. We regularly review the list of inactive product releases to determine those which we can continue to accept technical support calls for. As a result of the last review, we will no longer accept technical support calls for the following Inactive product releases as of November 30, 2011.

Content
Performance Management Products
TM1 – 8.4, 9.0, 9.1.X
Executive Viewer – 9.3, 9.2, 9.1.X

We strongly encourage your company to upgrade to a current version of our software as soon as possible.

[Alan Kirk]

Abstract
While older versions of IBM Cognos products have reached end of support and no longer have defect corrections developed, we have continued to accept technical support calls, ensuring that companies can resolve the questions and issues they encounter. We regularly review the list of inactive product releases to determine those which we can continue to accept technical support calls for. As a result of the last review, we will no longer accept technical support calls for the following Inactive product releases as of November 30, 2011.
...
TM1 – 8.4, 9.0, 9.1.X
...
We strongly encourage your company to upgrade to a current version of our software as soon as possible.

Meh, can't see it being much different to the situation now. You end up getting the same result (and you don't even have to go back to unsupported versions to get there), you just reach the endpoint more quickly.

{Insert wavy lines denoting a dramatisation video...}

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Iboglix Support (IS): "Welcome to Iboglix Support. Here at Iboglix we are committed to providing our valued client base with proactive, forward looking, web-oriented, multi-platform, dynamic business solutions within a win-win paradigm. How can I help you?"

You: "I've discovered a bug in {version before the current one}. The server will crash if you do the following {Redacted}".

IS: "OK, the first step will be to upgrade to {the current one}.

You: "Hang on, we spent 6 weeks testing our current model before we upgraded to the version that we're using. We had to rebuild our entire budgeting model because you changed the server locking model in that release."

IS: "Yes, that would be part of our commitment to providing our valued client base with proactive, forward looking, web-oriented, multi-platform, dynamic business solutions within a win-win paradigm."

You: "But haven't you changed the locking model in the current release again? Won't I therefore have to go through that 6 weeks of testing and redevelopment again? What I actually want is a patch or workaround for {version before current}."

IS: "We're considering {Current version} to be the patch for {version before current}. This ensures that we can honour our commitment to providing our valued client base with proactive, forward looking, web-oriented, multi-platform, dynamic business solutions within a win-win paradigm."

You: {String of expletives redacted}

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Or put another way, the bucket is different. The contents are not.