Just wanted to make everyone appraised of an issue I recently came across:
MBS will only support a technical upgrade if the OBJECT version is still support. i.e. when 4.03 support ceases E/Jan 2010 A technical upgrade of objects less than 5.0 will not be a valid supported enviroment.
Previously it would have been…
Consider yourselves warned 
t
Thank you Tony, do you have a link to this information from Microsoft?
So even when the customer is on NAV2009 exe’s, if their application objects are 4.0 they are SOL? Basically that means they are forcing customers to do a full upgrade if they want support? If that’s true there’s going to be some seriously unhappy customers.
4.0 was released and it took about 2 years till 5.0 was released. So majority of customers out there are on 4.0. I have one client that is on 4.0 and 2009 executable. They have been live for two months. Just a few objects had to be changed to make it run on 2009 executable. They mainly did this is so that they could use webservices so they could integrate with their website. And that has worked out nicely for them. Doing the whole upgrade is too expensive. I’m sure they will in the future, but currently everything is working fine for them. There is no business reason to fully upgrade to 2009. Now if new NAV was two times faster, that would be a killer reason for everybody to upgrade.
You have a very good point there Rashed. In fact most of the companies I know and have been working with the last 3-7 years are also still on NAV 4.0. Some are even still on Navision 3.70. Most though have upgraded to newer executables. But the business case for most of them to spend many 1000-$ on an upgrade is simply not there. The current version they have is simply too good! [;)]
I also think that the global financial crisis is a major reason why they are not upgrading right now.
And Microsoft’s pressure to get them to upgrade right now just makes them aggravated. I know of at least one major Navision customer who is currently seriously considering alternatives to Microsoft.
If I were Microsoft, then I would accept the situation and extend the support period with at least 6 or 12 months. For most customers it will not mean a thing, but for others it would be a great gesture.
There should be absolutely no reason to discontinue technical support for a certain version of the business logic. I fail to see the logic in why a customer on 5.0 exe’s and 3.7 business logic should not be eligable for a hotfix, or a platform upgrade, or anything like that. If there is no business requirement for the new functionality, customers should not be forced to upgrade.
That would mean that the maintenance fee is not merely the right to updated exe’s, but also an obligation to do functional upgrades, for unknown future modifications, even when those modifications do not provide any business value. That would just be insane. I have to say I have a hard time believing this is the case.
Well I do understand that Microsoft after a period don’t want to support old versions. It surely does make a difference if you have to support 3 different releases or 30. If they have to worry about fixing errors in old versions and then consequently all following version, then this might become a big job. So of course they should limit themselves (especially if they know that errors reported in older versions was fixed in the new - which of course isn’t the case).
The only thing that I suggest is that they extend the current maintenance period of otherwise expiring versions with 6 - 12 months due to the crisis.
I don’t think its new, maybe just the are enforcing it now. I had a customer a couple of years back on 3.70B and they had issues. So I wanted them to upgrade executables to 4.00SP3 so we could do some tuning. MS said not to do that because they would not support that configuration unless they also upgraded the objects to a supported version. So I asked if they supported the pure version, 3.70B/3.70B and they said no its not a supported version.
My argument was that that at least 3.70/4.00sp3 would be a 50% supported version, but they said no. Its a 0% supported version.
Sorry Tony, just re-read your post, you are not saying this is new, you are saying that they are now starting to enforce it.
I’m not suggesting that MSFT indefinately support business logic, of course not. BUT once a customer has done a technical upgrade and is using the latest version of the exe’s, they should not be denied access to an OS patch for instance, or a new set of C/AL keywords, or a different implementation of SIFT, or compatibility with a new version of SQL Server, things like that.
There’s a difference between the platform and the business logic. Customers should not be forced to upgrade and implement Outlook integration or kitting or whatever new functionality if there is no business requirement for it. I don’t think any customer would think it is unreasonable that they’d have to pay for a developer to modify business logic for an outdated version. Being denied access to OS patches and things like that, being forced to do a full upgrade, even when there’s no business case for a full upgrade, now that’s another story.
Is this confirmed by Microsoft?
OK I did read it right the first time.
Tony I think this has been in effect for a long time. Its definitely not new.
Hey all,
Sorry for the delay in replay, I need to setup my notifications
Here is the exact reply I got :-
First, there has been a change over the last year with regards to what is considered a supported environment. The old policy stated that as long as the executables were a supported version the whole environment would be considered supported. Now to be a supported environment both the executables and database objects need to be on a supported version of NAV. This is the reason running your customer’s 3.7 objects with NAV 2009 SP1 executables is not a supported environment.
The other side of this is that the technical upgrade to NAV 2009 SP1 is not supported. You are correct, in the previous version you were able to perform a technical upgrade, but with NAV 2009 SP1 there have been change made to the underlying architecture that requires a full database upgrade. This is why the technical upgrade to NAV 2009 SP1 is not supported.
Base on the above, restoring your customer’s 3.7 database into NAV 5.0 SP1 would still not be supported.
That is direct copied and pasted… so yes, I am a little distraught, we have customers who can not afford, or is does not make sense to upgrade, and now we have this, Why pay enhancement?
That becomes the central question doesn’t it. A lot of customers are already wondering that very question, and the outlook on technical upgrade was always the main reason to convince them to pay the fee. It would be smarter to keep the enhancement fee in reserve and build a buffer for when there is a business case for upgrading. At that time the money’s in your own hands and you’re free to choose whichever product suits your needs.
Interesting. This must be a country by country thing then. I guess now its becoming international. But basically what you pasted above is what we were told. And this was in a call with MS, the Var, the customer and me. I was asked to join the call to make the argument for whey the customers should do the technical upgrade. In the end I lost and the customer were forced to do a full upgrade.
Actually my argument was that 3.70/3.70 is not supported, but they wont support 3.70/4.00sp3, so what reason is there to NOT do the technical upgrade since both are unsupported at least we would have the latest executables.
I would say, based on knowledge and experience that a technical upgrade is a relatively safe bet… but you have to know the risk… that is, no MS support.
As for what Daniel was saying, and what I mentioned about the enhancement, even if the customer decides not to pay their enhancement, if they ever want to upgrade they would have to pay the lapsed fess up to the current time… there are some alternatives to that.
Overall, in my opinion, this is sucky.
t
My point is that if you pay the enhancement fee, the money’s gone and never coming back. If you keep it yourself in reserve, you can save for the next solution, whether that is a NAV upgrade or another alternative. This is essentially an installment plan for a new license.