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The Cost of Bug Fixes
Well, I try to avoid posting MS stories unless they're kinda
large, but about 50 people have submitted a CNet story that
proclaims that MS might be charging as much as
$89 for a Service Patch to
Windows 98. I guess I'd try to come up with an appropriately
witty comment, but I'm at a loss for words here.
Update: 04/07 03:27 by CT : apparently Cnet is screwed up a bit here, and
CNN has a more accurate
story. Read it.
Okay, if you have looked at all the graphs of OS use, tell us what Microsoft's competition is on Intel PCs in the home. Or on Intel PC desktops in corporate use?
Lets see. Linux? Hardly. BeOS? Again, I really don't think so. OS/2? Whatever. Where's the so-called competition?
People who insist that Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly are just fooling themselves to believe whatever comes out of Microsoft's mouth. The fact of the matter, Microsoft soft wields tremendous market power. Regardless of whether Microsoft has a literal monopoly, they are abusing their market power to the detriment of society. That is why they must be stopped. The reason people say that Microsoft is a monopoly, is because it's alot easier to say than "The wield near-monopoly market power." (Like the whole Linux, GNU/Linux thing).
Even AT&T had competition, as did standard oil, and they were monopolies by every sense of the word.
Yes, they are monopolists in their own little world. And no, they can't raise prices at will. There will be a point that it will be cheaper to rewrite everything over the long term than to stick with a vendor that is gouging you. So no, they cannot change prices at will.
The fact of the matter is, if Microsoft decided to charge $200 for the upgrade, most people would pay for it rather than explore alternatives, simply because there aren't really any alternatives.
You present an argument, but you have yet to back it up with solid facts. Other than saying "that applies to micrsoft too" please tell me how. Microsoft does not have much, if any at all, competition in the intel desktop market. PLEASE tell me where they're competition is, I would like to be enlightened. If you can't point to specific examples, then perhaps it's time you rethink your argument.
Linux is the fastest growing server OS because there are so few installations. If you add a few more, *poof* you have 100% growth, or even more! Growth has nothing to do with market share or market power. Besides, you say yourself server OS. The market that Microsoft has a monopoly is the intel desktop PC, which sadly, Macintosh doesn't compete in either.
Try again?
I guess MS can get away with this, since their software has no warranty. So much for the theory of suing MS if something goes wrong.
TedC
Not that I care much, since I don't run MS oses at home, but I have another point here that might put this in perspective. I have an old Sun box running 4.1.4. It works. Period. It does, day in and day out, just what I've configed it for, nothing more, nothing less. The only down times have been protracted power-outages or a kernel recompile for a patch. Now, in about 7-8 months, this box will be usless. Why? SunOS 4.1.4 is not y2k compliant w/o a patch. The patch is offered by Sun, for a hefty price. This is the base os I'm talking about, not some apps. I think Sun should offer the patch for free, but that ain't gonna happen. The cost? $1,295.00. The hardware is okay according to Sun's y2k page. Now, I talked to Sun about this, and what I got was a service contract that would put me on a path to Solaris 2.x. All this for $3,060.00 per annum. Thing is, that is overkill.. It's not what I want.
Now, I could slap RH Sparclinux on this puppy, but that is not my decision to make. I can't use the free Solaris 'cause this is for business use. My point is that I should not have to go through an upgrade/replacement because the os is doing just fine as it is. Am I pissed? You bet.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Apple charge for upgrades. So do Oracle, Sybase, IBM and almost every other company.
And the article didn't say the 'service pack' wasn't free - it says the upgrade wan't free.
claiming the SP isn't free is hysterical scaremongering.
Regards,
Regards,
-scott
--
bgphints - internet routing news, hints and ti
After all, wasn't Windows 98 itself just an $89 bug fix?
Anyway, there are no bugs in any Microsoft products, just "issues".
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
No significant number of users want any bugs in Microsoft products fixed.
He based this on the fact that a low percentage of people call the tech support numbers and say "hey, I found a bug!" Of course ignoring the fact that most MS users are not technical enough to know when they've found a bug, they assume that they themselves are doing something wrong.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Also, the economic definition of a monopoly is that it can raise prices at will
So could any RDBMS vendor - the cost of switching systems is so prohibitive, most users would gladly pay $100 more than switch, even if the cost was unjustifiable.
So does that mean that Informix and Sybase are both monopolists?
Your rules don't apply to software, where any installed software has a stickiness, especially if apps have been built around it.
Example:A RDBMS vendor who has 1% market share can change prices at will for a present customer that has built a number of apps based on that RDBMS - the customer simply cannot afford to reeengineer the code. So could any vendor. So are they all monopolisits?
I think the courts have ruled that because of the "stickiness" they MUST be treated as monopolies.
But then virtually every software platform vendor is a monopolist. At best, you need some new rules to govern platform builders (OSs, RDBMSs, etc.). Calling each one a monopoly isn't going to be very constructive in the long run.
I think the courts have ruled that because of the "stickiness" they MUST be treated as monopolies.
But then virtually every software platform vendor is a monopolist. At best, you need some new rules to govern platform builders (OSs, RDBMSs, etc.). Calling each one a monopoly isn't going to be very constructive in the long run.
And no, they can't raise prices at will. There will be a point that it will be cheaper to rewrite everything over the long term than to stick with a vendor that is gouging you
This applies to Microsoft too though, blowing your argument. Really, most serious data wharehouses are more closely tied to their RDBMS than their OS.
Oracle users, for example, can move between HPUX and Solaris and still use OCI. Moving away from Oracle would be far more costly than switching OSs.
They have to give away service packs for OS/2 - no one would buy them.
you're being dense.
linux is the fastest growing server OS right now.
the biggest selling home pc is the iMac.
how much more obvious do you need it?
If they didn't have monopoly status
Arrghh! Why do people insist on treating this as if it were settled and byond debate?
Microsoft is NOT A MONOPOLY. Look at any graph of OS use - Microsoft has competition in every segment. In the server OS segment it wasn't even the fastest growing product this year.
Microsoft abuses contracts, attempts to impose its will where it shouldn't and uses some questionable bundling practices. But these are NOT tantamount to a monopoly.
Please people, we just make ourselves look silly when we believe our own BS and throw around terms like this as if they were resolved historical facts.
Okay, okay. I used to think that Justice needed something better to do than try to break up a company like Microsoft.
.x releases that mainly contain bug fixes (and charge for them)?
Then how about Oracle, IBM, Sybase, Sun, Informix, etc. who release
I just wish there was some *usuable* competitive OS
If you don't want to use Linux, the MacOS is a passable (not preferrable) alternative to win95/98.
You're free to be as stupid as you want to be.
.x versions of software that mainly contain fixes, and charge for it.
Really. If Microsoft can get people to fall for it, then why not?
Honestly folks, every piece of software is a fix, upgrade, or amendment to something that has come before, so I don't really see a logical reason why a pricetag can't be put on the upgrade.
There were no claims that the original piece of software was defect free, and no one is claiming that users must purchase the upgrade.
I fervently disagree that the government must "do" something about this as other knee-jerk responses above have stated. Software vendors do this all the time. Database vendors, for example, typically roll out
This really isn't that abnormal.
My employer is faced with the same ugly dilemma. We are also making awful, contorted product release and pricing decisions based on idiotic accounting BS. My very limited understanding of the new rules goes something like:
- Company ABC spends a year and $10M developing the next release, Rn, of their cash cow product BigBucks2000
- The schedule gets grim, so they cut feature Y from the product a few months before FCS and redirect the Y team to get the release out.
- A month later, they have bugs that need to be fixed in the field, so they spend $.1M fixing them and release an update, Rn.1
- Feature Y is now complete and ready to include in the update.
At this point they are caught on the horns of an accounting rule. If they add Y to Rn.1, the accountants will claim the Rn.1 is different from the original Rn. If it is ruled a different product, and they do not charge for it, all $10M of the R&D expenses for Rn must be booked against the one month where Rn was sold. The $.1M R&D expenses associated with Rn.1 would be booked against Rn.1 revenue. If they charge for Rn.1, they can continue spreading the Rn R&D expenses over the full selling cycle of Rn & Rn.1 while booking the update expenses against the selling cycle of Rn.1. If they charge, their books look good. If they don't, they crater the first quarter and their stock tanks. I tried to dig up URLs on this stuff, but so far I've come up empty.Its all BS. MS customers are about to get screwed by it. But the problem is not specific to MS and may not be entirely MS's fault. Like I said, we have chosen to withhold enhancements from updates, charge separately for new stuff, or only ship new stuff to subscription customers based on this FASB idiocy. Perhaps MS could have made different product packaging and delivery choices that would have given the W98 customers free bug fixes. But my guess is that would have distorted IE5 and the tight coupling of W98 & IE in ways that were just too painful.
Its bad enough that public corporations live and die based on quarterly results and market expectations. Compound this with bean counting straight jackets and the result is that software consumers are getting screwed for no good reason.
Very interesting - where did you buy 95 OSR2? It wasn't for sale to the public.
(The "O" is OEM.)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Thanks for debunking this, Mr. Objectivty. Microsoft has *never* charged for a service pack (except for Win98, which is essentially as service pack!), so the news would be suprising, if true.
Microsoft is probably trying to avoid the Win95 fiasco, where the retail upgrade version didn't change one iota in 3 years, while they had slipstreamed in several "OEM Service Releases" onto new computers that had things like USB support. This made it troublesome for small shops and individuals to get all the bug fixes.
Note that big site licenced corporations DON'T PAY for upgrades at all from Microsoft. They get their stuff on a subscription basis.
So now you go to the store and buy Win98-SR1 instead of Win98. Big f*ing deal - think RedHat 5.1 -> 5.2. Yet there's 100s of posts bemoaning the horrors of this action from people who supposedly aren't Microsoft customers.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
There's a different mind set at work here than unix admins probably have. When Sun came out with Solaris 7, production administrators did not run out to CompUSA to stand in line. No, they carefully examined the fix lists, contacted their other vendors, ran a test machine and so on.
People who run out and buy the latest Microsoft product are kinda like people who trade in their 1997 Mustang for a 1999, becuase there were cosmetic changes. They don't care about techncial improvements or bug fixes, they just want the latest and greatest.
Of course these people don't call in with Bugs. Do you think they would actually go through the systematic routine to try to reproduce a bug? On the other hand, corporate IS departments do report bugs to Microsoft -- their just not very receptive, so I doubt the bug reporting from the technically adept customers is as good as it could be.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It is a free country and everything you said is true.
However, what makes me frustrated is that every wierd thing MS has ever done suddenly becomes the norm. Users just eventually accept that this is the way things are supposed to be. MS has been moving towards a subscription based pricing model for a long time and I only see this as another step towards that goal.
re:Databases. In the cases of Oracle, Sybase, etc... their software is fairly specific. The chances of having a seriously fatal bug are fairly rare, and if you are a large enough customer they will usually send you patches anyway. Charging for an upgrade makes a little more sense in this case. Many customers won't upgrade and others will. It just depends on how it affects the bottom line. Some deals like these are still done on a handshake. It is viewed like an almost custom "service" in that case. For a service, you expect to keep paying.
In the case of Windows, this is a little more intangible. A user will upgrade because there is a momentum that has been created. There is almost no relationship between cost and revenue other than a manufactured marketing message. MS is trying to make people think of the OS as a service. This is a little scary.
It is a free country and if they can get away with it then fine. I again have to wonder how far their cockiness will take them.
The fact that they've been promissing a free upgrade only to turn around and charge for it is also a little frustrating. I know at least a few people that only upgrade to Win98 because they knew a patch was forthcoming. The worst part is that they now just shrug and say, "Oh well." This means that this idea is already starting to feel normal to some people.
If they didn't have monopoly status, then I'm sure none of use would care at all. It is, after all, a free country. I can say, though, that it would be more fun to watch if I wasn't sitting right smack in the middle of it.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
Whereas it wasn't as obvious with Windows 4.1^H^H^H98, it is now pretty obvious here where their pricing model is going. To some of us this comes as no big surprise because we've been saying it all along. To others of us we don't care anyway because we never paid for an MS OS anyway. (And no, I'm not referring to pirating.) This is bound to surprise at least a few MS advocates in the world.
I just have to wonder if their cockiness will eventually be their downfall or will it just continue to work in their favor because they are who they are.
Conspiracy theorists will of course say that this is just an excuse to obtain peoples' personal information since it looks like Win 98.1 can only be bought through their web site. This means that they will be able to associate your name, address, and credit card number to your system GUID. Theoretically, they could also use this information to build a huge database of any web sites you've visited that use Link Exchange (since they own that too). Is MS going to become the largest marketer of personal data?
Realists know that this probably isn't going to happen. An NT server could never handle the data load we are talking about. I seriously doubt that MS would actually pay Sun Microsystems money for one of their huge data mining machines. Imagining the internal psychological struggle that Bill must be going through on that one is sort of funny.
Anyway, I don't want this to turn into a Jon Katz article so I'll stop now while I'm ahead.
-Paul (pspeed@progeeks.com)
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
Check the latest article on PCWeek on this topic. Betanews.com got it real wrong when they orignally posted their article, CNet picked up their story. In summary, MS is going to send you a StepUp CD, which does not cost $89, and will only be available for order from their website. They haven't mentioned price, but the PCWeek article said it would be signifacntly less then the $89. The retail Win98 SE will simply replace the Win98 out in the channel at the same price of $89, like RedHat 5.2 replaced 5.1 and 5.0 in the retail channel at $49 or $50. Also, PCWeek states MS is going to post an SP1 on their website, but it will not have any new features, unlike like the StepUp CD. Thanks.
So MS wants to move to subscription-based pricing? That's fine. This is (supposed to be) a competitive, open industry. But I think not. Instead, they'll have a faux-subscription model with paid updates every year.
Let's all suppose that MS is limited by regular economic laws for a minute and say that they can only charge what the market will bear. Let's also say that they thought about this before arriving at the prices for their Operating Systems.
Price for Windows 95: $89 (9/95)
Price for Windows 98: $89 (11/98)
Price for Windows 98 update: under $89 (6/99)
As PC Week says, the update for Win98 users will be substantially less than $89. What does that mean? We'll estimate it at half that, or about $45.
Assuming that the Win98 SE is the first rollout of their new pricing model, and assuming it's this year's only update, this means MS means to charge about $45 a year to use their OS. This compares to $89 for three years of using Win95.
But wait, they just charged $89 for Win98 last year, too! Since they deliver a new OS every three years or so, we'll assume that they'll continue to do this and charge about the same for it.
Will consumers really pay $89 every three years for a new OS, plus $45 a year for updates? I know I sure wouldn't! That's quite steep indeed!
Or maybe this is MS' way of getting more money out of the vast majority of people who get their Windows from an OEM with a computer purchase.
This makes much more sense. Assume that they give away windows for free (which they don't) and then charge $45 per year for updates. Over the three-year lifespan of a machine, this is almost $150, or a 50% increase on the price of Windows!
I always believed that the secret to MS' success was piracy. They turned a blind eye on pirates
in order to gain market share. This has worked
incredibly well for more than 10 years.
If they used subscription pricing, they would have to try to crack down on Pirates. If instead they invent a new update to charge for every year, they can let the pirates work and cement their market share, and still get a little money back... Would they really kill their golden goose by moving to a subscription model? I think not.
Stephen
So why did people upgrade to windows 98?
They believed it will be y2k tolerant.
what they got is nothing except being forced to use IE4.
Yet again, they continue to amaze me.
They call it "second edition" when it's not even a bugfix.
what it does? this time it forces IE5!
(yet again making people think it is y2k tolerant)
people pay MORE MONEY to get LESS CHOICE.
they expect people to pay by an interval of 1 year.
"Just rent the goddamn thing!!!!"
but, they're shooting into they're own ass.
people will think: "If I have to upgrade (and obviously i do, since MS is admitting that windows98 is incomplete) I'll just upgrade to Linux, or BeOS!"
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I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Your argument would be true if they had actually gone to the trouble of fixing these bugs in the first place, but they didnt!
I can imagine a conversation at Microsoft right now:
employee 1: "So, are we going to fix XXnastyBug?"
employee 2: "Ok, let's go"
gates: "STOP! Let's save some bugs for windows 98.3"
Think about it.
they have thousands of employees and billions of dollars.
they can afford to fix all these bugs IF THEY WANT.
are they fixing them?
do they care?
they get more money for upgrades,
and spend less for debugging.
btw,
the goverment didt care that win98 is just a bugfix,
they cared that it bundled internet explorer.
---
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I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Do you want to see the preview of windows2001? (codename neptune)
very close to ms-bob? (toaster-os thingy).
try to view it on john dvorak column on pc magazine. (now zdnet)
quite funny.
click here
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I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Are you looking at percentage growth? That is a misleading figure. If only one person uses my server, and another uses it next year, I have 100% growth. Whoopee. 12% growth for NT amounts to a HUGE number of new machines running NT.
A higher percentage growth can still take a long time to overcome overwhelming odds. If Linux and Windows keep the same growth rate, it will take about 20 years for Linux to surpass Windows. How many people actually believe that today's growth rates will be the same in two years?
Also, the economic definition of a monopoly is that it can raise prices at will. Ignoring the 90% market share, MS has demonstrated that they can charge whatever they want to hardware manufacturers and large corporations. At least end users are showing some sense with slow adoption.
What, pray tell, would be their competition for end-user desktop OS? BeOS maybe? Or perhaps you are still a GEM user?
It's not the price for upgrading that suprises me, but the price for bug fixes.
However, what I find MOST troubling is that most of those who purchase software (in the windows realm) aren't the least bit suprised when it has bugs in it. Or to find out that tech support can't help them because there's not a fix for it. They may be a little miffed, but they just accept it even though there is *rarely* a money-back guarantee.
I mean COME ON! I don't expect a $1 razor to be defective, but I'll return it if it is and get a new one that *works* or get my money back. Isn't facinating how a most of the software vendors for windoze put disclaimers on there software that states there is no guarantee with this software at all what-so-ever? Isn't it more amazing that those users just sit and take it?
Micro$oft has really poisoned the water of expectation that their customers have for the platform and the software that runs on it.
- You are correct about the OSR2 CD not being an "upgrade." I was not clear in my use of the word, and yes, it is an OEM CD. I had to "upgrade" to OSR2, as will be explained in item #2.
- The "new" hard disk was originally sold with Win95 pre-installed, however, because of some undocumented detail which I no longer remember, the motherboard required OSR2 to function correctly. I had alreadly reloaded my data directories, etc. into secondary partitions. OSR2 refused to install to anything other than a completely unformatted, unpartitioned drive. This requirement was also not documented, by the way. Which is why it took way too long to accomplish. M$ poor phone support wasn't any help either.
- You missed my point. My time as a programmer bills out at $85 an hour and up. Which means that I could have earned $340. during the amount of time I spent dinking around with buggy old Win95 and buggy new Win95.
- Again you're right -- clean installs are much faster. That said, every time I've been involved with a major Win9X or NT upgrade at a client site I feel damn lucky to get the first one done in under 4 hours because of way too many poorly documented and often stupid changes between versions, without giving us power users / developers / installers an opportunity to select what we want. At least in Win3.X M$ gave us more choices during installation.
- I included win98 in my TCO because based on prior experience, I would expect similar worst case time scenarios to take place.
Which is why, in my book, Linux still wins....Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Win95 OSR2: $89 Install: $340.
Win98 $89 + $340? (refused to install it)
Win98 $89 + $340? (will not install it)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) --not counting down time in the mean time due to OS bugs-- estimated at $1287* for one year. Who says Windows is not abusing their near monopoly? DOJ, are you listening?
Cost of Linux, including latest bug fixes: $60.
Time to Install, including Backup: 4 hrs $340
TCO = $400.00. For those purists, yes, I will have to spend additional time once the 2.2X kernels are fully incorporated into an RH release.
My point?? Linux Wins!!!
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Secondarily, most corporations have SLA's (service level agreements) with Oracle covering upgrades, etc. The TCO for an Oracle database is usually spread across many, many users, vs. M$ which has a high TCO on every machine. [think: vulnerability due to Word Macro Virii, downtime on NT servers, etc.]
So if a corporation with 1,000 deskktops connected to the database paid $89 for every machine upgraded to Win98-Second Edition, plus the time to perform the upgrade, we're talking potentially many hundreds of thousands of dollars additional cost here, without (IMHO) a fully spec'd out list of improvements and bug fixes.
Thanks but no thanks. Up with Linux!
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Windows 98 Second Edition is due in the fall.
Let's see, W'98(2) -- is that what they've been talking about when they've been saying "Windows 2000"?
Put another way, it will cost as much to upgrade from the current version of Windows 98 to the fixed version of Windows 98 as it will to go from Windows 95 to Windows 98.
Windows 98: A bug-fixxin bargin at only $188!
(That's an exclamation point at the end of the previous line, not the symbol for factorial. I thought I had better clarify it.)
In many cases, bug fixes are posted for free by software companies.
In many cases, people give their whole damn product away for free. But Bill's is still well behind on that road.
Windows 98 Setup has grown from a collection of bug fixes and application updates to include Internet Explorer 5 and other features
Ummm, wait a minute there. I thought the original W'98 was a collection of bug fixes, updates, and a new integrated Explorer. Wouldn't it have been better PR to call this W'99 ?
Or should we say, the've hardly wiped Netscape's blood off their hands, and now they're back to charging for the browser that's supposed to be an integral part of the OS?
Thank you, Linus, oh, thank you!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
People, there's a critical point being missed here. There's nothing wrong with having a monopoly. There IS something wrong with wielding massive market influence (like a monopoly) to try to force other competitors out of the market. It is also something wrong with using domination of one market (operating systems) to try to stifle competition in other markets (word processors). THAT is why Microsoft is wrong, and Oracle/Sybase/Apple/Be/Whoever are not (at least not in the same way).
Oracle's evil, but for a whole different set of reasons. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
As one person said before, I can understand a charge for a maintenance release/upgrade of a major program such as Oracle, Sybase, and even major applications specific to an industry or custom programmed. But, often times, if you're a large enough sale/account, a representative from the company will come out and ISSUE the bugfix/update FOR YOU.
Microsoft is off base here. I doubt this will last long once the mainstream print and television media catches on.
I also find it quite humorous that not only are they fixing bugs with this "Second Edition", but they're "..adding new technologies and expanded driver support." I think the only driver that I use on my 95 system that *CAME* with 95 is the Microsoft Serial Mouse driver. I don't need to pay $89 to have MS download the latest driver(s) for me and then, as they like to say so much, 'seamlessly integrate'-it into the Windows Hardware list.
Sheesh.
-Chad
I've worked with both NT and Linux web and file servers. When it came time to spend MY money setting up a server and workstations for MY business, the contest was pretty one-sided in favor of GNU/Linux. I got the NT-Spanking Server(TM) on a CD for less than a Win98 upgrade.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
OMFG! So I byt this new PC with 98 preloaded, (I still run it, BTW( then M$ says, "Screw you, Jack! You want a Windows that doesn't crash daily? I got yer bug fixes right here.
I'm at a loss for words...
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Thank you! I downloaded IE5 the day after it came out and uninstalled it two days later. Try it, if you open two windows and have two active links... bang! The whole bloody house comes down.
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Yes, and I can see them charging the same as for Win 98 shrink-wrapped, but how can they justify charging anything for the bug fix?
Look at it this way...
Win98 Upgrade = $89.00
Win98 SE = $89.00
Win 98 Upgrabe and SE CDROM = more than $89.00
How does this work again??
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off