Update: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support Lifecycle

Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle policy provides consistent and predictable guidelines for product support availability when a product releases and throughout that product’s life. By understanding the product support available, customers are better able to maximise the management of their IT investments and strategically plan for a successful IT future.

The support lifecycle for Dynamics CRM products is summarised below:

Version	Lifecycle Start Date	Mainstream Support End Date	Extended Support End Date
Dynamics CRM 4.0	29^th Feb 2008	9^th Sep 2013	10^th Oct 2018
Dynamics CRM 2011	18^th May 2011	12^th Jul 2016	13^th Jul 2021
Dynamics CRM 2013	12^th Jan 2014	8^th Jan 2019	9^th Jan 2024
Dynamics CRM 2015	11^th Feb 2015	14^th Jan 2020	14^th Jan 2025
Dynamics CRM 2016	30^th Nov 2015	12^th Jan 2021	13^th Jan 2026
Dynamics 365 CE	31^th Oct 2018	9^th Jan 2024	13^th Jan 2026

Full details can be found at HERE.

Extended Support

KMS recommend you keep your products within the mainstream support. Once into extended support Microsoft will stop any feature development, stop issuing non-security updates or hot-fixes, plus you may start to run into compatibility issues with related software e.g. new versions of MS Office, updated browsers and updated server versions.

Is it time for cloud?

One of the huge benefits of CRM Online (now catchily name “Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement”), is that you no longer have to worry about the compatibility of underlying Operating Systems, SQL Servers and a host of other software as all of those server-side considerations are taken care of.  This means you can focus on the important things like making use of new features and updating user knowledge.  Moving to the cloud means it could be the last CRM upgrade (in the traditional sense) you ever need to do.

If you’re currently on an older version of Dynamics CRM, now is the time to start planning your next move and cloud would mean both reducing the administrative overhead plus a host of new features for your users.