You know what phrase I’m getting sick of hearing lately?

“We will be ending support for ___” – or – “No longer supported” – or sometimes its just – “Not supported”

These are all such generic phrases that spread mass confusion, and sometimes even panic. I’ve been asked many times if the reason someones GPS or AutoTrac quits working is due to the product no longer being supported.

Now I understand that some Precision Ag products are pushing 10+ years old, and that’s fine. But many of these products work just fine. And if they quit working, you junk them and buy something newer.

What I don’t want, are producers and operators getting the idea that their hardware or software is going to quit working. It’s very likely that these products, especially hardware, will continue working just fine.

I’ve heard from 500 different people that Apex support will be ending “soon” for last 5+ years. But guess what, it’s still here. Heck, you could still use JD Office to read files from a brown box.  Now I do understand that Apex very likely will never be updated to load setup data to Gen 4 4100/4600 displays. And that’s fine, Ops Center does that, and hopefully desktop programs like SMS soon will. But what many seem to be getting the impression is they’ll be forced off Apex. I’m not saying it will never happen, but especially for those manually bringing cards and flash drives back to the office, I don’t see any reason for it to quit working. Sure, eventually a new version of Windows could come out that won’t work with it, and sure there may be bugs that never get fixed; But don’t tell users they can’t do something when they still can.

Same goes for hardware, there are still many many brown box (GSD4) displays out there working (and even original StarFire receivers too). If something goes bad maybe Ag Express can fix it, otherwise it’s junk. I think it’s fair that the brown box’s mobile processor and Original StarFire won’t work on final tier 4 emissions vehicles, but please, use your terminology wisely and be honest.