Sophos UTM Retirement / EOL announced

 Vivek Jagad 

LuCar Toni 

RichBaldry 

Can anyone confirm please?  *holds mic up to the screen*

Hello Amodin ,

Thank you for reaching out to the community, 

In the interest of transparency, and to provide a longer planning horizon, Sophos may sometimes provide specific partners (and customers) with advance notice of lifecycle milestones for products they have sold or own.

This privileged information is intended for the email recipients only and may not yet be reflected in our retirement calendar.

While we cannot prevent such early information from being shared, we ask for your understanding that we will not discuss such advance notifications on the community forum until we have had the possibility to adequately inform all impacted partners and customers.

Your local Sophos representative will be happy to discuss further details, should you have any questions or concerns.

Vivek,

Again - with all due respect here:

Vivek Jagad said:

In the interest of transparency, and to provide a longer planning horizon, Sophos may sometimes provide specific partners (and customers) with advance notice of lifecycle milestones for products they have sold or own.

I think this must be Opposite Day.  That's not 'in the interest of transparency', what you have here is the exact opposite of what transparency is.

Vivek Jagad said:

While we cannot prevent such early information from being shared, we ask for your understanding that we will not discuss such advance notifications on the community forum until we have had the possibility to adequately inform all impacted partners and customers.

I think the cat's out of the bag on that one.  You do realize that people on this forum are also 'your customers' and in some cases, partners, right?

UTM I'm sure has a big following and just as large of installations out there. I hate to toss out the 'people have a right to know' but we all know there's no such thing as rights - we can choose what we use.  But, at the same time there is some common sense and courtesy that needs to take place with handling customers, whether or not they are hone use license or paying customers.

Vivek Jagad said:

Your local Sophos representative will be happy to discuss further details, should you have any questions or concerns.

My local rep is this forum, as I don't have a subscription to support anymore - only a home license of which I've had for a very long time.  I've contributed my own personal time (as well as many others) to attempting to make this product better and function well for people asking for help.  I think the only way I could get any better would be formal training for certification in your product - which won't happen, I can't afford that.

I get what you are trying to say - really.  But quite honestly, Sophos' lack of not talking about it so people can prepare to move to XG, or another product if they choose to do so is putting them behind the curve in preparation of what's to now obviously come to our front doorstep.

Just because you don't want to talk about it, doesn't make your problem go away. At least extend your users the courtesy of not disrespecting them by not talking about it and essentially dismissing it as rumor.  We are all adults - we can take bad news.  We've seen it coming, the only thing we didn't know was when it was coming.  Now we can plan with or without input from Sophos, I guess.

The move to SFOS (XG) may be a good thing, and I hope it matures within the next three years for it to be a viable product for people.

That's how things work in the corporate environment. There is a grief cycle that happens...

1. Someone leaks some info anonymously (shock)

2. Rumors start to spread. (disbelief)

3. The company says the rumors are false (denial)

4. Company finally says rumors are true, people feel lied to (anger)

5. People attempt top plead to not let it happen (bargaining)

6. Eventually everyone accepts it as inevitable (acceptance)

That's how things work in the corporate environment. There is a grief cycle that happens...

1. Someone leaks some info anonymously (shock)

2. Rumors start to spread. (disbelief)

3. The company says the rumors are false (denial)

4. Company finally says rumors are true, people feel lied to (anger)

5. People attempt top plead to not let it happen (bargaining)

6. Eventually everyone accepts it as inevitable (acceptance)

So lets see, which stage are we in.

1) Check

2) Sort of here?  We all knew it was going to go EOL sooner than later so no real shock.

3) No official confirmation from the company (at least not in this thread). However no denial either, so..... Must be true :)

Lol.