Re: I was Microsoft Support for 2 Years

On May 30, 8:45 am, "John Slade" <hhitma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
b"thee_pirate" <christopher.trott...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:c62a0703-4328-4c5e-a0d0-75b8222f1b7b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



To be precise, I was Xbox and Zune support. I supported the hardware,
Xbox Live, and the kiosk lines of business. In that time, I went from
being on the front lines to working one-on-one with the head of
Microsoft Retail Support.

Before, I worked for Microsoft, my attitude was very much that they
were "the Borg" -- that their entire attitude was the callous
"embrace, extend, extinguish". I was wrong.

In actuality, Microsoft is filled with passionate people who love
technology. They are razor sharp. Every single employee at Microsoft
loves video games and are very proud of Halo 3. Say what you will
about the rest of Microsoft, the Xbox division bleeds creativity and
innovation. This, by the way, is coming from someone who decided to
buy a Nintendo Wii and not an Xbox 360.

Which brings me to the point of why I didn't buy an Xbox 360: the
dreaded three lights of death. In case you are wondering, this
"glitch" is caused by the GPU processor being in direct vicinity of
DVD drive -- without a heatsink nearby. It was fixed somewhat, but not
before Microsoft lost at least $1 billion dollars was wasted extending
the one year warranty to three years (and merely for those
experiencing the three lights of death).

In my opinion, this is a precise example of what ails Microsoft: they
don't "get" consumer electronics *and* it's the bean counters that run
the company.

This is a prime example of a design flaw that slipped through. I've
seen it happen on game consoles before.

It didn't "slip" through. It was a pretty obvious blunder. Anyone
who has built their own computer knows that you don't stick two
components that generate heat together -- and then don't put at least
a heat sink nearby. And then they denied the "design flaw" existed
for two and a half years until the bad press got the better of them.

However I have never seen a company bend over backwards on this flaw
like Microsoft has.

They basically had two. The original warranty on the Xbox 360 was 90
days. If you were two break your Xbox 360 beyond the initial 90 days,
you would have to pay $139.99 for a repair and then pay for your own
shipping. They changed their warranty to one year because Nintendo's
warranty was one year. And then they changed the warranty on the
three red lights fiasco to three years due to the public relations
disaster taking on a life of its own.

It seems they pretty much have consumer electronics
figured out when they make such a popular game console.

It is in third place in Japan -- having only sold half a million
units. For the past year in Europe, it has been outsold by both the
Wii and PS3. In North America, it is going to be outsold by the Wii
within a month. This is a console that had a year long headstart on
the competition.

Microsoft didn't get
to be the biggest software company by putting out stuff that customers
didn't want.

Microsoft became the biggest software company by putting out what
*corporations* wanted. From there, people bought what was familiar,
and what was familiar was Microsoft.

Sure you had problems with their OS software but all modern,
complex OSes have problems. When Windows 95 came out, it was great, a
quantum leap over what Apple and others were doing at the time.

Windows 95 was merely DOS with a GUI painted on. There were plenty of
OSes that were technically better than Windows 95: Sun OS, OpenStep,
all the BSDs. On my old Slackware box, I had pre-emptive multi-
tasking on the terminal level. All I had to do was type "Ctl + Alt +
F2", and I was able to run IRC while compiling some new software.

I admit that System 7 was a dog. However, I will still say that the
GUI was still better than what Windows 95 was offering. This was
because all the guts of the OS were kept in the System file and users
were able to run amok everywhere else.

The task bar at the
bottom the tate and time at the right lower corner were copied.

The taskbar was introduced by OS/2, not Windows 95.

Microsoft also made some pretty good input devices over the years.

Indeed, they have.

The three lights of death wouldn't have happened if they were in tune
with the needs of the consumer. The Xbox 360 is not designed for wear
and tear. It's designed to sit unmoved, in a solid place, with an
ideal amount of cool air somehow making its way into the case.
However, try telling a 13-year-old boy that his Xbox is not a toy.

Which brings me to the next point. I'm convinced it's the
beancounters who allowed this situation to pervade for practically two
years. If the engineers had their say, the Xbox probably would have
been revamped within a matter of months. However, someone at
Microsoft thought they would have saved more money leaving things
unchanged for the amount of time that they did. How wrong they were.

Noting more than a design flaw that got through and it's now corrected.

It's not corrected. It's just covered by a longer warranty. People
still encounter the three red lights of death more than they should.

So why am I bringing this up? To highlight exactly what Apple does
right and Microsoft does wrong. Apple is a consumer electronics
company. As much as Microsoft may be passionate about technology,
they don't understand the design principles that go into a good
consumer electronics product. The product may be innovative, it may
be beautiful to look at, it may even be a "great leap forward".
However, Microsoft doesn't seem to understand that when one deals with
a consumer, you got to move quickly -- and quickly doesn't mean two
years, in the Xbox example.

Excuse the expression but this is complete horse ***. Apple has put
out some real crap over the years. The Cube

What was wrong with the cube?

first iMac with no removable
media

Of course the iMac had removable media. It just didn't have a
floppy. If you so wanted to, you could go to your local store, buy a
zip drive, and plug it into your USB. In fact, I did just that.

and the computers with faulty batteries. Then there were the pre-iMac
models like the Mac 6200 that was pretty crappy. I had friends who ran Apple
authorized repair centers and let me tell you, certain computers by Apple
had design flaws.

But did any of these computers have the same design flaw while they
were in production for more than two and a half years?

I went there an would see Macs stacked to the wall waiting
to be picked up or waiting to be fixed.

Well, yeah. This was a repair center.


Apple, on the otherhand, understands the consumer. Apple understands
that beyond the look of the machine, the innovation behind it, the
sheer lust, one must be satisfied with the product.

More horse ***. Apple is currently selling two computers based on size.
The Mac Air notebook and the Mini. They are not being sold for their
respective power or flexability, they're being sold on their looks they're
novelty computers.

Size isn't to be underestimated. I need a computer two put in my
entertainment center and a tower will not do.

What company puts out a laptop with no fucking DVD or CD
burner and charge more for the privilage?

They aren't charging you more for the privilege of not have a DVD or
CD burner, they are charging you more for the size. In a laptop the
size of a MacBook Air, you don't want a DVD burner anyway because a
DVD burner generates heat. Heat creates havoc on your battery. Even
worse, it could cause your laptop to overheat.

My girlfriend paid $300 for her Eee PC and it doesn't have a DVD
burner either. Then again, it only runs at 600Mhz and only has 2GB of
SSHD space.

Then the
Mini and iMacs are not interally expandable so when you want extra storage
you have to add more boxes.

Why would you open up your box for extra storage when, for $200 you
can buy a router that doubles as a file server?

No Apple doesn't understand the computer market
too well that's why they had to stop making Macs and start making PC clones.

When did they start making PC clones?

The people who were making components and low-cost high performance desktops
understood the computer market.

The people who are making low-cost high performance desktops are
driving themselves out of business. Where is Gateway and eMachines?
The only two companies making money from low-cost high performace
desktops are Acer and Dell. Even HP stays out of the low end nowadays.

Then there was the AppleTV which is a complete and utter flop.

Apple sold 1.5 million Apple TVs during the first year. Not a runaway
success, but not a flop either.

Apple's great success stories are the
iPod and iTunes. Yea that's right a computer company selling music and music
devices. Who'd a thunk it?

Creative thought about it way before Apple did.


This is why the
Zune will fail.

If the Zune failes it will be because it was so late in coming and not
because it's an inferior product. Apple already had the lion's share of the
market before the Zune was a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.

The Zune failed because of the terrible DRM and Microsoft's "me too"
approach to the DAP market. In the end, they ended up taking
marketshare away from Creative, not Apple.

> This is also why the Wii will soon outsell the Xbox

360 in America, despite the Xbox 360 having a one year start.

Well I don't know about that. I suspect both consoles will do well.
However the greatest feat will be selling games. Microsoft is first and
foremost a software company it's what made them great. Apple got this too
because now their computers run Windows too. Halo 3 sold over eight million
copies. How many copies did Apple sell of OS X Leopard?

Most of those people who bought Halo 3 already owned an Xbox 360.
Halo 3 didn't expand the market like Wii Sports and Wii Fit did. Most
people who buy a Mac aren't buying one to run Windows -- although it
is nice that buying a Mac doesn't mean that you can no longer run
Windows apps.

Finally, this is why Apple customers are willing to spend over, $1000
on a computer despite the great mass of computers now being sold at
$600 or under.

Apple has a small core group of zealots who buy anything Apple puts
out. They were the first ones to run out and buy a pile of crap called the
AppleTV. They will believe Apple when they say, "You don't really need a DVD
or CD burner or player on the laptop. You can just borrow a friends through
wireless or Ethernet. Oh hey you can a USB one!". BTW. Does the Mac Air come
with a Firewire port? That was Apple's "superior" technology to USB.(wink
wink, nudge nudge)

You don't need a DVD burner on a laptop -- especially if your primary
purpose is just to type up documents and surf the internet. And Apple
isn't the only one who thinks so. Dell and Asus think so too when
they offer subnotebooks without the DVD burner.
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