End-of-Life Policy
End of Product Life Cycle:
Overview
Products reach the end of their Product Life Cycle for a number of reasons. These reasons may be due to market demands, technology innovation and development driving changes in the product or the products simply mature over time and are replaced by functionally richer technology. While this is an established part of the overall product life cycle, APLEX technology recognizes that end-of-life milestones often prompt companies to review the way in which such end-of-sale and end-of-life milestones impact the APLEX’s products in their networks. With that in mind, we have set out below end-of-life policy to help customers better manage their end-of-life transition and to understand the role that APLEX can play in helping to migrate to alternative platforms and technology.
The End of Life Policy only applies to End of Life and End of Sale announcements made in all Theaters on or after November 30, 2019 for all APLEX product lines. The Policy does not apply to product that is already subject to an End of Life and/or End of Sale announcement.
The general policy guidelines are:
- As a general rule, APLEX will provide 6 months' notice of the affected product's end-of-sale date and/or the last day when the affected product can be ordered. This notice will appear on the aplex.com site at www.aplex.com/index.php/home/product_eol_notice and we encourage you to visit this site regularly as it contains useful information regarding aplex's end-of-life program.
- APLEX customer service department will offer for a period of 3 years from the end-of-sale date for hardware, operating system software issues for a period of 1 year from the end-of-sale date.
- Spares or replacement parts for hardware will be available for a period of 3 years from the end-of-sale date. We will provide spares and replacement parts in accordance with our Return Materials Authorization (RMA) process.
- Software support will be as follows:
- For the first year following the end-of-sale date, we will provide bug fixes, maintenance releases, patches for critical bugs reported via the customer service window.
- After the first year and for Operating System SW -where available- we will provide bug fixes, maintenance releases, patches for a period of 3 years for operating system software. Bear in mind that it may be necessary to use software upgrade release to correct a reported problem.
- After the first year and for Application SW -where available - we will provide bug fixes, maintenance releases, patches for a period of 1 year for application software. Bear in mind that it may be necessary to use software upgrade release to correct a reported problem.
- You will need to ensure that you have a current and fully paid support contract with APLEX. Please contact your Support Account Manager regarding fees payable during the end-of-life period so that we can support you right through the end-of-life transition period.
- Below are guidelines that should be followed to ensure that you receive effective support for the affected products within your network:
- For hardware or software that is not covered under a service contract, customers may add the product(s) to a current contract or purchase a new contract until 12 months after the end-of-sale date.
- Service contracts that have not been renewed or have lapsed after 12 months of end-of-sale date are not re-newable.
- Renewal of your service contract will generally be available until the last year of support, but will not extend beyond the last date of support
Here is an explanation of some of the terms that we have used in this notice:
End of Product Life Cycle: A process that guides the final business operations associated with the product life cycle. The end-of-life process consists of a series of technical and business milestones and activities that, once completed, make a product obsolete. Once obsolete, the product is not sold, manufactured, improved, repaired, maintained, or supported.
End-of-sale date: The last date to order the product through APLEX point-of-sale mechanisms. The product is no longer for sale.
Hardware: The physical product and its physical components.
Operating System Software: Operating system software that runs on APLEX hardware
Software: Software, drivers, utilities tools that requires the presence of operating system software.
Software Maintenance support: The time period that APLEX may release any software maintenance releases or bug fixes to the softwares. After this date, APLEX Engineering will no longer develop, repair, maintain, or test the product software.
