David Kirsch presents on strategies for managing the end of life cycle for products. He discusses concepts like end of support, end of new features, and end of sale. He emphasizes the importance of prior notification to customers with sufficient timelines. Key risks include staff leaving, lack of spare parts, aging libraries, and inability to continue building. A case study on Cisco's ACE product is presented where it generated over $450M in sales but had to be discontinued due to security vulnerabilities. The presentation advises being radically honest with customers and providing guidance when announcing end of life. Managing end of life well is valuable but often unappreciated for product managers' careers.

1. From $180M/yr to $0
While keeping the customers

2. In Kind
Advocate
Sponsors
SUPPORTERS

3. HELLO!I am David Kirsch
I am here because I love to share knowledge and guidance with fellow product
managers. Today I want to help you be successful at the end of the product
lifecycle. The data presented is public. The opinions are my own and not of my
present employer SiriusXM nor any prior employer.
You can find me at david@david-kirsch.com 3

4. LET’S REVIEW
SOME EOS/EOL
CONCEPTS
4

5. 5
END OF
SUPPORT
END OF
NEW
FEATURES
END OF
SALE

6. PUBLISH POLICY
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
TIMELINES FOR HW, SW, FW, SERVICES
RESPONSIBILITIES
RIGHTS TO DATA, METADATA, MODELS
MAINTENANCE, UPGRADES, REPLACEMENT
DEFECTS, SECURITY, VULNERABILITIES
6

7. PRIOR
NOTIFICATION
WITH SUFFICIENT TIME IS NECESSARY
MAY BE CONTRACTUALLY REQUIRED
MAY BE LEGALLY REQUIRED
7

8. WHAT DO YOU
CONSIDER
as EOS/EOL risks?
8

9. ABILITY TO
SUPPORT IS
NOT IN YOUR
CONTROL
9
STAFF LEAVE
NO SPARES
LIBRARIES AGE
CAN’T BUILD

10. STAFF LEAVE
∎ Or they forget how
∎ Or they refuse to work on the old stuff
∎ Or we make up stories about how they
hold us hostage
10

11. NO SPARES
∎ Supply chain analysis for maintenance,
swaps, spares & sales through EOS
∎ Don’t assume any re-use
∎ Pre-generate spare licenses
∎ Put some in a closet, software on media,
software in a container 11

12. LIBRARIES AGE
∎ Consider security vulnerabilities MOST
∎ Update software and build to modern
library
12

13. CAN’T BUILD
∎ You will loose your tooling
∎ Perpetual vs. use validated licenses
∎ Escrow entire make environment – cloud
/ container
∎ Plan to loose your ability to build 13

14. bonus: Must Do
∎ Non-standard agreements
∎ Development to the end date
vs. declining skill and ability
∎ Escalation – solve with hw/sw/license
14

15. Case Study:
Cisco ACE
Cisco Application Control Engine
15

16. $450,000,000+Total product sales
$1,000,000,000+
Total transaction value processed on these systems on peak day
24,000+ customersB2B customers
16

17. 17
 April 2006 First Customer Ship
 September 2012 News of Exit
 July 2013 End of Sale Announcement
 January 2014 End of Sale Date
 March 2015 Last Software Version Release
 January 2017 End of Software Support
 January 2019 End of Hardware Support
Calendar of Events

18. 18
SSL Vulnerabilities

19. TIME TO
TELL THE
CUSTOMERS
19

20. SOME
CUSTOMERS
WERE NOT
HAPPY

21. SOME CUSTOMERS
WERE
ANGRY
21

22. HOW DO YOU
TELL THEM?
22

23. USE
RADICAL HONESTY
23

24. SHARE FACTS
24

25. GIVE GUIDANCE
25

26. THE RESULTS
26

27. THE PM ROLE
IN EOS/EOL
And its affect on you and your career
27

28. FROM FIRE
FIGHTER
💃

29. TO FIRE
PROOF
💃

30. CAREER
PRIORTY?
30

31. 31

32. EOS/ EOL done well
is valuable, but it is
rarely valued.
💃

33. PLAN
Create, publish and
follow policy.
Create buffer space.
Move through it in your
fireproof traveling
clothes.
AHEAD
33

34. THANKS!Any questions?
You can find me at david@david-kirsch.com
https://www.slideshare.net/DavidKirsch4/from-180m-to-zero-while-keeping-the-customer

35. In Kind
Advocate
Sponsors
SUPPORTERS

36. CREDITS
Special thanks to our PCA Sponsors and all the people who made
and released these awesome resources for free:
∎ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
∎ Montserrat and Didact Gothic fonts from the Font Squirrel
∎ Angry icon made by made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com
∎ Photographs via PixelBay 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, 19
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