Like most software companies Microsoft is a strong enthusiast of annual maintenance fees. In the Microsoft world it is known as Software Assurance. In the Fall (or so) when the next major version of CRM is released (think V7.0) operating systems and other remnants from the previous decade will no longer supported. You can kiss just about anything that has the numbers 2008 in it goodbye.

The CRM Team Blog has given everyone fair warning to immediately start planning ahead. For those of you that are in organizations that acquire Software Assurance you will be automatically eligible for the new licenses. For those that aren’t it will require new OS purchases and more to be able to get with all the latest and greatest features in the next Dynamics CRM version.

Important information about supported configurations in the next release for CRM

Changes in supported platform software

“For the next release, we’re removing the following operating systems from our Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server support matrix:

• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Small Business Server (All versions)

We’re removing the following SQL Server versions from our Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server support matrix:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

We’re removing Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook support for:

• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008 Remote Desktop Services
• Microsoft Office 2007

Our current plan for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server is to target only Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, and SQL Server 2012 for the next release time frame.

Note that we’re exploring support for SQL Server 2014 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server, but we haven’t made a decision at this time.”