Product End-of-Life Standard Guidelines

Long Term Product Support: Overview

As products mature, they are typically replaced by advanced or more feature-rich technology. Other reasons for product obsolescence include changing industry standards, a lack of demand from the market, significant changes in the product itself, or the technology is no longer cost-effective to produce.

ATI recognizes it is important to communicate our planned product lifecycle milestones so our customers can better manage their investments. These milestones include:

1. End of Production Announcement Date: The date of the official notification letter announcing the discontinuation for a particular product. After this date, all orders received are non-cancelable and non-refundable.
   
   
2. Last Order Date: The last date the product can be ordered from ATI.
   
   
3. Last Shipment Date: The latest date by which all final product orders will be shipped from the factory.
   
   
4. Sustaining Support Ends: Sustaining engineering is the technical support of mature products and involves the identification, review, assessment, and resolution of a product’s deficiencies throughout its life cycle. ATI will make commercially reasonable efforts to fix critical software bugs and prevent part obsolescence until the end of the published sustaining support period.
   
   
5. Last Planned Repair Date: Standard repair services and spare parts are available for the product until this date. ATI will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide sustaining engineering support to fix critical software bugs and prevent part obsolescence. After the Last Planned Repair Date, ATI may continue to offer annual calibration services and limited support if it is commercially viable.
   
   
6. Last Planned Calibration Service & Support Date: After the Last Planned Calibration Service & Support Date, ATI will discontinue annual calibration services or technical support.

This End-of-Life Guideline was initially published on May 17, 2018, and updated December 7, 2021, to clarify:

• the difference between “Last Planned Repair Date” and “Last Planned Calibration & Support Date” and 
• The duration of support listed are guidelines for planning purposes only. ATI will make commercially reasonable efforts to abide by these guidelines but cannot guarantee performance.

General Policy Guidelines

1. When making product discontinuation transitions, ATI will provide 9-12 months of notice whenever possible between the Announcement Date and the Last Shipment Date. These announcements will be posted HERE. You are encouraged to visit this section regularly as it contains valuable information on ATI’s product discontinuation process.
   
   
2. Once the Last Shipment Date has been reached, ATI will continue to provide technical support, repair service, and replacement parts for the length of time equal to the warranty period of the product being discontinued (varies by product). During this time, any hardware failures covered by the warranty will be repaired or replaced, and critical software bugs will be remedied, at ATI’s discretion, and applying commercially reasonable effort. Replacements will be made with identical products whenever possible; however, ATI reserves the right to replace them with an alternative, functionally equivalent product. Extended service contracts cannot be purchased after the Last Shipment Date.  
   
   
3. The diagram below illustrates our product lifecycle phases for ATI’s products, as well as the standard guidelines for the development of End-of-Life milestones. 

End-of-Life Planning Horizon

Software Support Guidelines

ATI’s guidelines for supporting Operating System Software and Firmware, and Application Software are

1. Operating System Software or firmware for discontinued products (products in the Passive or Limited lifecycle phase): Before the Last Shipment Date for the product, ATI shall provide maintenance releases, workarounds, or patch releases. After the Last Shipment Date and up to the Last Planned Repair Date, only critical bugs reported to ATI’s Technical Support Team at [e-mail] without available workarounds will be addressed with a patch release or an upgrade to a newer release version. After the Last Repair Date, no Sustaining Engineering support will be available for the product.
   
   
2. Application Software, or Operating System Software and Firmware for active hardware: For the most current release of the software, ATI shall provide maintenance releases, workarounds, or patch releases for validated bugs reported to ATI’s Technical Support Team at [e-mail] for two years from the initial release date or until a newer release is made available, whichever comes first. Critical bugs without available workarounds found in prior release versions will be addressed with either a patch or an upgrade to a newer release version.