Re: License Migration to Windows Media 11


"zachd [MSFT]" <zachd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:e%23ABlp%23VHHA.480@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We're talking about cross-purposes off-topicly. =)

The quality of Microsoft's support for Windows Media Player, worldwide, seems to be on-topic in a Microsoft controlled newsgroup offered as part of the overall support package for Windows Media Player. You are the one who changed the topic from a discussion of support policy for DRM failures to a discussion of hate.


The origin or native language of any person has no bearing upon their technical merits.

Absolutely. The language barrier does not tell us a thing about the person on the other side of the wire. When I speak to them, I am fully aware that they are, just like me, a person who works because that's how he or she earns a living so that they can attend to the things that are really important in life, such as family. I am very aware of the fact that they are underpaid, often abused, and are not at fault at all that Microsoft has put them in a position that puts stress on them and the caller just to save a few dollars. Every time I have spoken to any offshore (from the US perspective) support person working under contract to Microsoft, they have been very courteous and tried very hard. They are fantastic workers who just need a job and Microsoft took advantage of their need.

I have worked as MIS and telecommunications manager in a medium sized company with a 350 seat call center. I am very aware that call center employees all over the world are people who just need a job to support their families. When the company they work for has policies that cause problems for customers, the board of directors and senior executives that created those policies never have to bear the burden for those decisions. It is the near-minimum-wage call center representative that has to bear the brunt of the customers' frustrations and anger. And that is whether the call center is in the United States or India.

What the language barrier does reflect on is Microsoft - a company who has done great things in localizing software but does not localize its support. And the reason that Microsoft's support is not localized has nothing to do with having enough users of any native language to support the localization of support for that language. It has everything to do with the fact that so many Indians have great technical skills and training and Microsoft can get them, because of the poverty of their country, to work for peanuts.


Outsourcing is a very interesting topic.

Your usual blowoff when you just cannot defend the position you have taken on something.


I think that cuts to the core on both of our points.


That doesn't cut to the core of anything. It simply blows the topic off. That's what you do with anything that reflects negatively on Microsoft.

You took a simple statement about language barriers in Microsoft's product support and turned it into a question of hate. As far as I am concerned you need to either retract your statement and apologize or you need to acknowledge whose policies and practices really reflect hate. Microsoft does not use Indian developers and support personnel because they love the Indian people. They use Indian developers and support personnel because they can pay them less than half of what they would pay an American to do the very same work. So, Zach, who is it that has little regard for the value of Indian contract workers?

You took a simple statement of fact and tried to twist it around into a statement of hate so you either retract and apologize for your response or you address the real question of hate.

Dale

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