It is a subject that we often have to keep talking about, the scenario where businesses are continuing to use legacy Dynamics CRM versions that aren’t being supported by Microsoft anymore.
To put this into context with an example, you wouldn’t go on holiday to a hot country without sun cream or drive your car without any insurance, however you will find that some businesses are still using software that are exposed to higher security risks and potential for catastrophic crashes.
Let’s give you a bit of background around this by telling you about how Microsoft product lifecycles operate, when a new version of their products such as Dynamics CRM is released with it comes a lifecycle that helps to deliver advice, patches and updates which are included as part of the Microsoft licensing fee.
As well as this, it is also true that Microsoft’s engineers continue to develop this product by building new features and extra functionality which take over the older versions. Furthermore, following some good communication from Microsoft, the older versions start to become increasingly irrelevant.
Therefore, it goes without saying but it becomes the responsibility of the buyer to make the transition to a new and much better supported version. You will discover that Microsoft’s support for older versions of Dynamics CRM gets smaller and smaller as more and more businesses upgrade.
In addition to this, you will notice that products such as Dynamics CRM 4.0 and Dynamics CRM 2011 don’t have any more support available as of 2018 and 2021 respectively. The clock is ticking despite the fact that some are still able to get extended support.
To put this into context with a few examples, if you are using the following versions of Dynamics CRM, the deadlines apply:
- Dynamics CRM 2013: Mainstream support no longer available as of 2019. Extended support will finish in January 2024.
- Dynamics CRM 2015: Mainstream support no longer available as of 2020. Extended support will finish in January 2025.
- Dynamics CRM 2016: Mainstream support no longer available as of 2021. Extended support will finish in January 2026.
It is important to note that all of the above have had their end dates extended, however it doesn’t leave a lot of time for businesses to take action and upgrade to newer versions.
Upgrading in itself can cause a few problems along the way.
For starters, you will find that there aren’t a lot of engineers that have the knowledge and know-how around migrating from on-premise Dynamics CRM systems to the Cloud.
Most of the newer members of the team are used to dealing with Cloud technologies, not used to having to maintain a server. This demonstrates a significant gap in the market.
Furthermore, it used to be straightforward to do a lift and shift migration to migrate all the data to the new cloud platform, however this becomes a little trickier if there are multiple applications and datasets integrated with the old system.
The longer you let time pass and the nearer you get to the end of a lifecycle, the harder it becomes to make a commercial decision around this.
To give you an example of this, we are currently working with a business in the technology sector who are using CRM 2016 who are finding it hard to make the move to the Cloud. The main problems around this are they are looking to bring together 3 businesses in one place with only one of them in the Cloud. The other two have a combination of legacy on-prem systems, with some subtle cloud apps filling the knowledge gaps, so this becomes a much tougher transition than it should have been due to the lack of mainstream support that is available.
Next Steps?
If you are a business that is using a legacy version of Dynamics CRM then don’t delay making the move to a newer version, we can help you upgrade your legacy version or even help you start from scratch through one of our Quick Start CRM packages. Talk to our team of CRM experts today to discuss your specific requirements.
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