After having released its own branded Surface RT tablet in late October, Microsoft has now confirmed that its support lifecycle for the tablet will be at least four years.

About Microsoft's plans of 4-year-plus support for its Surface RT tablet, Microsoft ZDNet blogger Ed Bott recently revealed that the company will release software updates and security patches for the tablet for four and a half years after the initial launch of the product.

Drawing attention to the fact that the present Microsoft policies offer "a minimum of ... four years Mainstream Support for Consumer Hardware products," Bott's disclosure specifically implied that Microsoft will continue supporting the Surface RT tablet till April 11, 2017.

The `Mainstream Support' phrase in Microsoft's policies underscores that "hardware repairs or replacements and parts" will be available to consumers all through their device's support lifecycle period. In addition, services will be `free' for the under-warranty devices; and for products past the warranty period, services will be charged for.

With the software of the Surface RT tablets is covered by the support lifecycle policy for the Operating System on the device, an FAQ related to Microsoft's `Mainstream Support' for its devices clearly mentions: "For Surface devices, any Surface software installed, embedded or downloaded on the device is subject to the software lifecycle support policy for that software."