Supported Systems

Generally speaking, the depreciation lifetime of a computer system these days is about 3 years.

From a practical point of view, it usually becomes unrealistic to support obsolete systems that are more than twice that old —

• the capabilities of systems increase very rapidly – we wish to offer customers enhancements to our products based on them.
• supporting obsolete systems increases the cost of developing software, and more than doubles the cost of testing.

If you use Aurbach & Associates products and have obsolete computer systems, you need to consider our long-range plans.

Macintosh Systems

As of fall 2006, our products run on PowerPC-based Macintosh computers running OSX and OS 9, and on Intel-based Macintosh computers under Rosetta. Providing native support and performance on the new Intel-based machines is a top priority for us.

The problem is that maintaining OS9 support at the same time can only be accomplished by separating the OS9 and OSX development into two independent projects. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to double our Macintosh development cost to support OS9. Therefore,

• We will continue to support and maintain our OS9 customers as long as possible.
• In the short term, we will continue to release software updates for OS9, but will perform OS9 testing at a reduced level.
• For each of our products, the introduction of a version with provides native support for Intel-based computers will mark the end of new OS9 development for that product..
• We will support PowerPC-based OSX systems as long as we have PowerPC computers available for testing.

Windows Systems

As of fall 2006, our products run on Windows 2000NT and XP. However, since Microsoft has ended its support of Windows 2000NT, it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to support and maintain our products on 2000NT. Moreover, the introduction of Vista will further complicate the situation.

Therefore, we will gradually decrease and eventually eliminate support for Windows 2000NT.

• We will attempt to support and maintain our 2000NT customers as long as possible.
• In the short term, we will continue to release software updates for 2000NT, but will perform our 2000NT testing at a reduced level.
• New versions of our products will cease to support 2000NT by mid-2007.