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Why are Microsoft Customers Scared of Criticising Microsoft?
gsfprez asks: "This article documents the stories of three Microsoft customers (organizations that voluntarily buy Microsoft products) who are clearly unhappy with the product offerings of Microsoft - but are simultaneously petrified of this fact being made public. My question to the crowd is not regarding the subject matter of the article: rather, I want to know what is it that could scare a company away from telling a product vendor that they are unhappy and merely *considering* not buying their next product? Fear of reprisal (in the form of a software audit) is simple extortion...no? More ethereally - do we actually live in a world where MS not only 'demands' you buy their new products, but appears to have people pissing their pants at the thought of doing otherwise?"
E-Week is a magazine for CIOs and IT administrators. If you get your name printed disparaging any of your suppliers, you can be sure that your sales rep and tech support rep aren't going to smiling and saying 'wow, what a great and effective way to deliver feedback to me.'
The law maybe is, but how does the Microsoft know if you use free software or pirated MS software? What I'm affraid is this:
*Knock, knock!*
-- Who's there?
-- Microsoft action rangers! Let me see your license!
-- Get lost, I don't use your shitty software!
-- You have to let us in and let us check out all of your computers to prove that!
Anyone has any experience with them? Because I sure don't want to let them near my computers at all.
root@aio:~# nmap -sX -iR -p1- # Ho, ho, ho! Merry Xmas, everyone!
You might as well as, "Why are /. posters afraid of criticizing Linux?". Because if you do you will be "audited" (modded into oblivion) by the Slashbots, of course!
It seems reasonable to post links to an article that shows that Microsoft customers could possibly have serious need to criticize the company, even in cases where the software works: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.. If Spanish is your native language: Windows XP muestra la dirección que Microsoft está tomando.
Those who criticize Microsoft face a lack of sympathy from people who are not well informed, which is most people. Typically, Microsoft users attack each other, rather than examine the issues. My research shows that this is a phenomenon that is common. Human societies do not deal well with an abuser that tries many, many small abuses, and gives up any one abuse if the opposition is too strong.
Some history: Microsoft has made huge positive contribution to the world by creating an operating system that the world could adopt as a standard for small computers. Earlier there were more than 200 versions of Unix, each with small incompatibilities with the others. Versions of earlier Unix operating systems also were too powerful to run on affordable small computers. The Unix system would boot for the first time and expect that it would be attached to a network of typically hundreds or thousands of other computers. The manuals assumed that the reader was a professional Unix administrator.
The alternative to Microsoft operating systems was the OS known as CP/M. Those who designed CP/M-based personal computers used more than 68 diskette formats, making it impossible to interchange data between different systems by diskette, without using a conversion program. Digital Research, the company that made CP/M, sometimes provided manuals in which the original was printed using a dot-matrix printer with an old ribbon. To say that DR was insufficiently attentive to business is an understatement. It was crazy, and Microsoft delivered us from that craziness.
At the same time that Microsoft was making a huge positive contribution, it was making a negative one, also. The company has a history of the kind of abuse psychologists call "testing the limits".
Informative? INFORMATIVE??? The only thing Less informative than this drivel is the moderation done to it!
"In America the powerful always abuse their power" and of course the powerful in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, Africa, and the Rest of North America are paragons of virtue and NEVER abuse their position.
Democrats afraid of Republicans? HELLO - we just had an election here, and I don't think there's any more powerful way of saying "I disagree" than trying to take their job away.
Fascists? "when Al Capone ran everything"? For Chrissake!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Q: How many Microsoft Customers does it take to replace a light bulb?
A: None. They all bought into Licensing 6.0, and can't afford to buy new light bulbs until the next budget year. Maybe.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
So why is it that I don't see an example of either coming form Microsoft customers? Many people have already made a good point: that working thru your rep would be the first step, but what happens when said rep isn't working for you, or isn't serving you as well as could be because of company mandated policies?
Please do not discount this question because there seems to be an obvious answer when you look at the extremes. Everyone with a clue can figure that bit out. It's legitimate criticism that concerns me. Microsoft is deserving of a lot of it, yet aside from places like Slashdot (and other, more extreme sites), it's rarely given.