Company B has been using their telephone system for 10 years. This system hasn’t so much as had a hiccup since the day it was installed. It’s not one of the Big Four in telephone manufactures (Mitel, Nortel, Avaya, Cisco), but it meets their needs and works well. Then one day a storm passes though, lightning crashes outside, the power blinks out and come back on but the phones never do. The manager digs through her Rolodex for the phone number of the company that installed it only to find it is no longer in business. A quick check on the Internet finds another local vendor for that manufacturer but is told that product has been discontinued for 5 years and they don’t service it. They’d be happy to sell you the latest version but lead-time even for an emergency installation is one week.

These are not unrealistic examples what can happen. As a matter of fact, they are not even uncommon. So does this mean you have to buy the latest technology every year? No. But it does mean you should at least keep up with the latest supported software.

Every manufacture is going to End of Life (EOL) obsolete systems and software eventually. It’s too expensive to try staff and maintain inventories for systems that are no longer being sold. However, often a manufacture will discontinue support only for older software levels but, technically speaking, the hardware is supported. The manufacturer will often support the hardware IF the system is running supported software. The key to providing support is the software level. It ensures your hardware is supported.