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Maintaining multiple versions of a product

A product team , when it has more than one client, faces a challenge when it has to maintain multiple versions of the product.

Typically the implementation team would have made some customizations for every installation for the product. However, when they release a new update, they struggle to make it work for all the products since there are customizations and the new update might not be compatible.

There are several considerations that a product manager needs to take while deciding on the product strategy.

Saas versus Installation

Having a saas product makes it easier for the engineering team to push updates. If it is a installer distribution, There are the team will face challenges with distribution. Compatibility is also an issue.

The biggest issue however, from the user perspective, is data migration from the previous version to current version. The best way out of this is to make it a service as well. You can decide whether you want the customer to pay for that or not

Update versus Upgrade

There is no one correct definition for either of these 2 terms.

For the current product team that I am working, we have decided the following:

Upgrade: Any introduction of a major functional feature. This would involve significant changes in the product and there typically would be a need for the users to be retrained. Further there would be a need for data migration from earlier versions to current versions.

Update: This is a minor update that would be addressing smaller sets of feedback or any defects in the product. This would typically be handed out free. There would be no need for data migration and all the data that used to work in the previous version should work in the current version as well.

When we release an upgrade, we have to be careful on how many users are ready to switch to the latest version

Support for older versions

When we release new versions, we also need to understand how much concurrent versions can be supported. Sometimes this could be a cost in itself.

To handle this issue, our product team has decided on the following:
  • We will always handle only 2-3 versions old
  • If a version has less than 5% users we will stop supporting it actively
  • In case there are users that are still in older versions, we will allow them to upgrade freely.
Why would we allow them to upgrade freely?

This is so because we have found that the cost of support is far more than the cost of the upgrade. Hence, we reduce the cost of support by allowing for free upgrade.

Frequency of Updates and Upgrades

The updates can be as frequent as possible. Right here we are thinking of around 4-6 weeks between updates.

Upgrades , however, need more time. We have currently not reached a stage of maturity to release an upgrade yet. Based on our initial plan, we plan to release an upgrade every 12-14 months.

Why is this important?

The upgrade frequency is important for the users for the following reasons:
  • It gives them a visibility of what is going to come and when
  • It ties well with their business calendar and the new upgrade satisfies their new business needs
With all these considerations, the product manager needs to be able to handle support for multiple versions of a product.
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