Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced a new support policy earlier this week for its online services, pledging at least 12 months' notice prior to discontinuing any of its Microsoft Business and Developer products. Referring to the launch Windows Azure and Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft also pledged that the same grace period will be enforced prior to making significant or "disruptive change" to online services.

Writing on TechNet, Microsoft program manager David Carrington elaborated on what a disruptive change entails: "Disruptive change broadly refers to changes that require significant action whether in the form of administrator intervention, substantial changes to the user experience, data migration or required updates to client software." 

The new Online Services Support Lifecycle policies is part of Microsoft's strategy to provide a more stable and predictable experience for its cloud-based customers. As a precaution, Microsoft also promised to preserve a customer's data for at least 30 days should they decide to migrate elsewhere. Additional details on this announcement and the support timelines are available here.

While it's debatable whether a clarification of its cloud lifecycle policies will be welcomed by businesses, it is probably not entirely coincidental that this comes on the heels of a recent cloud-related announcement from competitor Google. In a bid to enhance its availability, Google has voluntarily removed clauses from its SLA (service level agreement) that allows the company to schedule planned downtime.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at TechNet
- check out this article at Network World
- check out this article at ITworld

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