March eleven,
Buy Windows 7, the new date on which Daylight Saving Time (DST) will consider impact in the U.S. and a growing number of other countries, is quick approaching. And Microsoft is operating overtime to get the message out that people need to patch a bunch of their Microsoft products, from Exchange Server, to Windows Mobile, so that you can head off date-change headaches. There's one bit of DST fine print that Microsoft isn't sharing quite so readily, however. (I discovered it by wading through a slide deck that Microsoft is providing to analysts to obtain them up-to-speed on the company's DST guidance.) Page 20 of the deck mentions that Microsoft has decided,
Office 2007 Professional, due to the number of customers and goods affected by the DST 2007 changes, to "amend the regular Extended Hotfix support program." If you need to patch older Microsoft items that already have moved from "Mainstream" to "Extended" support phase, Microsoft will give you a chance to buy the hotfixes you will need — for $4,000. Microsoft explains: "For goods that have entered into the Extended Support phase,
Office Standard 2010 Product Key, Microsoft will provide customers with the opportunity to purchase the DST 20007 hotfix at a reduced price of Four Thousand Dollars (US $4,000). Customers will only be charged a single fee of $4,000 to get all hotfixes, for items in Extended Support phase, needed to update their systems for DST 2007."For customers who have previously purchased DST 2007 hotfixes for goods in Extended Support, Microsoft will reimburse the difference to them under the new pricing category." A Microsoft spokesman said that the $4,000 price represents a substantial discount."Originally, all the out-of-support patches were $40,
Office Home And Student Key,000 each. However, we realized this hardship and lowered the price to $4,000 for ALL THE DST PATCHES for our customers best interest. The $4,
Office 2010 Home And Student,000 is to just cover costs," he said.Windows Server 2000, Exchange Server 2000, Outlook 2000 and a quantity of other Microsoft items are currently in the Extended Support phase. The full list of Microsoft items affected by DST 2007 changes is here.