Last year on April 28, 2017, when the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating system series reached end of life, Canonical announced a new way for corporate users and enterprises to receive security updates if they wanted to keep their current Ubuntu 12.04 LTS installations and had no plans to upgrade to a newer LTS (Long Term Support) release. The offering was called Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) and had a great success among businesses.
Now, after almost five years since its release, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) is also approaching end of life, which will happen next spring on April 30, 2019. Therefore, Canonical announced today that it plans to extend the ESM program to users of the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS operating system who are willing to pay for security updates after the support period of five years.