The Thinkwise Platform ensures that our customers do not have to worry about technological obsolescence of their applications. By separating model and technology, combined with our advanced runtime interpretation technology, we are able to update or replace technologies with minimal impact on existing applications. In order to adopt new technologies, however, it is sometimes necessary to drop support for older technologies.
Such a moment has come with the upcoming release of version 2018.3 of the Thinkwise Platform. With this release, we stop supporting SQL Server version 2008R2 and lower, and require the .NET Framework 4.7 for the user interfaces and the Indicium application tier. By requiring SQL Server 2012 or higher we can use all kinds of cool “new” features regarding storage, SQL, performance, security, and more. By switching to .NET 4.7 we can, for example, use the latest Transport Layer Security protocols and improve high density display support.
Thinkwise Lifecycle Policy
Our valued Service & Care colleagues are currently informing our customers about the upcoming changes. To provide consistent and predictable guidelines for the support of future versions, we have also drawn up the Thinkwise Lifecycle Policy. This lifecycle policy contains an overview of the support periods of our products and of the technologies used by our products.
TL;DR: We provide support for a version of the Thinkwise Platform for 18 months after the next version has been released. For supporting technologies, like database management systems and the .NET framework, we conform to the mainstream support period as defined by the supplier of the technology. For platforms, like browsers and (mobile) operating system, the support is based on the (version specific) market share. When the end-of-support date for a technology is reached, it does not necessarily mean that Thinkwise applications stop working with that technology. We only stop supporting a technology if it actually offers benefits for new versions. And if we do stop supporting a technology, we will timely inform our customers so that they can prepare for this.