About a year ago I completed my 6.5 → 7.1.2 upgrade and I am a little disappointed that I will have to start upgrading at the end of this year to version 8 to meet the EOM for 7.1.2 in Q3 2011. While at Process World I asked some people about the possibility of an EOM extension for 7.1.2 like there was for 6.5 and I was told that its not going to happen. They referenced the Software AG/WM merger as the reason for the 6.5 extension and recommended that I talk with my sales rep if I did not like the 3 year plans that they are working towards. While I intend to do so I was curious as to how other WM customers feel about the three year life cycle?
Personally, I don’t like to upgrade to a new product right away, which made me miss 7.0 and I’m thankful as I hear nothing but horror stories from people who have landed there. After I decided to pull the trigger on the upgrade it takes me about a 3/4 of a year to move my entire installation so in a three year life cycle I get a about a years worth of time on a platform before having to start the upgrade process again.
Sure I could go past EOM and keep running on 7.1.2 until EOS but with 25 core fixes to 7.1.2 in about a 24 month time frame I not willing to bet my business running past EOM. But maybe that would be as bad as it seems in my head. As a side note, I asked the same person at process world if 7.1.2 would be “stable” before EOM and I got the answer in the form of a questions “You don’t think 7.1.2 is stable”.
I’d love to hear from anyone on this subject. In the 6->8 upgrade class it seemed as though there was a pretty even divide of people on 6.X and 7.X and a couple of people on 4.X or 8.X releases. Do you 6.X people plan on upgrading before EOM or are you going to run until (or past) EOS? Do people on 7 plan on upgrading or are you going going through EOM into EOS? If you are already on 8 how do you like it and did you go from 7 or from 6? And hows 8’s stability? I see you are already on 8.0.1 with 6 core fixes which seems a little better than 7.
As a final note, there is a potential ray of light for this upgrade as I heard that 8.2 should be released in December and the upgrade from 8 to 8.2 is going to be “trivial” (but I’m taking that with a grain of salt since I heard that at Process World) so if I start my upgrade planning late this year maybe before the official testing begins I can switch from 8.0 to 8.2. And 8.2 should be on its own three year life cycle so maybe I will get 2 years out of it before upgrading (although if I go that route there goes my strategy of waiting for things to be stable before upgrading).
Thanks in advance for any insights or comments you have on this.
