Comment Re:Arbitrary major version jumps (Score 1) 172
Parent poster here, I tried to convince the my manager and sales department to give support on a time basis based (X years after delivery date), but the "that is not how other companies bigger than ours do it" argument won over mine. So as a result we update our versions based around the time we think we supported the old versions long enough.
I think a combination works best, major releases makes most sense when it comes to technology/code you must support while a minimum number of years makes sure you won't go Firefox and suddenly be at version 40. For all the other bashing Microsoft can take, their policy is actually a good model:
Mainstream Support for Business, Developer, and Desktop Operating Systems will be provided for 5 years or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Microsoft will also provide Extended Support for the 5 years following Mainstream support or for 2 years after the second successor product (N+2) is released, whichever is longer.
Basically you get a guaranteed 10 years of support from release, 7 years as long as you're buying the latest version (minimum 2+5) and if it takes longer the support period stretches too. Don't expect another XP though, Vista runs from January 2007 to April 2017, Win7 from October 2009 to January 2020 both 10 years, 3 months. And with Win10 seemingly on schedule for release this year it'll be the same with Win8.