Oracle Corp. will give users of version 10.7 of its applications suite limited support for another year after the June 30 general support cutoff date, to give them time to upgrade, the company said Thursday.
The “Extended Support” offer is limited to known issues. Customers will be able to download patches and get telephone support on those issues. There will be no new program updates, fixes, maintenance releases or functionality releases, according to a frequently asked questions document on Oracle’s Web site, which can be found at www.oracle.com/support/supportfaq.html.
Extended Support is provided at no additional charge to customers who maintain support contracts for the relevant licenses, Oracle said.
The offer is the result of a request by the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), which had already succeeded in getting full support for 10.7 extended twice.
“We were planning to discontinue support completely on June 30, but in discussions with the OAUG we have decided to keep support for known issues and that will be available for another year,” said an Oracle spokesperson.
As of June this year Oracle of Redwood Shores, Calif., will have supported 10.7 for seven years and the successor to the product will have been out for five years, the company said. Nevertheless, about 2,300 of Oracle’s approximately 13,000 applications customers still use 10.7, according to recent Oracle numbers.
To entice customers to upgrade, Oracle launched a program from Hewlett-Packard Co. that includes discounts on hardware and tools, along with equipment trade-ins, for customers upgrading from version 10.7.
Oracle’s applications suite includes a wide range of software to help companies run their business. It covers areas such as supply chain management, sales and marketing, finance and human resources.
Version 11i, also called the E-Business Suite, was launched in May 2000 and about 5,200 of Oracle’s applications customers now run that version. A further 1,600 users have started to make the switch. About 3,500 customers are on some other version of 11, Oracle said recently.
– With files from James Niccolai, IDG News Service
