As with new Innovation Packs of Siebel in the past years, the Premier Support and Extended Support timelines have been recently been further stretched. For premier support (and that is what matters most) it got stretched until November 2019. Although the Lifetime Support Policy document (LTS) does not mention Innovation Packs but rather calls out CRM 8.1.x / 8.2.x. But that does not make much of a difference, the reason is obviously a legal one. Oracle commits at a minimum to support a major product release for at least five years, and by that has to call out the product name at its original general availability release date. And since increments go in full calendar years only, one will see that the month of November will remain. Only the year where support times lines will end will change. And for now we have a comfortable 4+ years remaining, in premier support.
…and there will be a pretty full basket of functionality coming next year! Over the summer Oracle will most likely publish the Statement of Direction for Siebel Release 16.
– Jeroen