Re: *How MSFT *Deliberately, Arrogantly, Egregiously, and Totally* Fails to Support their Products*

From: Richard Goh (me_at_mailinator.com)
Date: 05/30/04 

Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 17:55:59 -0700

I am sure glad you got that off your chest! That was a lot of hate to
carry.

"Chad Harris" <ddram32_nospam@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:u6efZ%23dREHA.628@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Anyone associated with a NG in any way should be aware that Microsoft is
> totally abdicating support for their prodcuts to Convergys of Ohio who
flys
> this support into the ground. It is hoped that those who work for
> Microsoft, particularly developers, as well as those who don't will become
> aware of Microsoft's total lack of support for their products.
>
> If anyone from *Microsoft*, particularly the individuals named below, has
> the guts to try to justify this egregiously poor excuse for support,
please
> let me know. It has to change. This is posted here because the SQL MSDE
> and failure to support it is directly on point, and should be known and
> understood by any developer within or without Microsoft. These are some
> "fast facts" about Microsoft's Commitment to Support SQL MSDE 2000 in BCM
> the Add-In to Outlook 2003 sold in the most expensive boxes of Office
2003.
>
> Wake up!!!!!!!! Doug Burgum Sr. VP Microsoft Business Solutions, Steve
> Sinofsky Sr. VP Office, Jeff Raikes, Group VP Productivity and
> BusinessSolutions, Paul Flessner Senior VP Exchange, SQL, EBiz Division,
> EricRudder Sr. VP Servers and Tools, Lindsay Sparks,Jodi-Ueker-Rust,
Henry
> Vigil, and SQL Server Product Manager Kirsten Ward and particularly those
> who adapted MSDE 2000 to Buggy BCM Version 1--aprimitive Beta in a
package.
> All of you are in a *deep sleep at the switch* when it comes to Microsoft
> Support you have ceded to incompetent Convergys.
>
> Couldn't BCM have been integrated into Outlook? A number of hints to get
> BCM up and running are not anywhere on the Office Outlook BCM site nor in
> KBs. The few that are reside in far flung KBs--a type of *Redmond/Dallas
> campus Raiders of the Lost Ark Safari* (no Apple puns intended here).
>
> Either change the boxes to Convergys and their logo and let Convergys take
> over your company or support the products your developers and product
> managers labor to turn out! You have totally abdicated that support.
>
> A retail box of MOS 2003 Pro or SBE costs about $500--so that the BCM CD
is
> not a coaster, Microsoft needs to commit to support it--not just PR
> spin--and get Convergys out of the way. They are a wall between you and
> your customers as are your Phone Route Managers--so-called "MCSDMSCC DSTR
> Team LeadProduct Support: 1-800-Microsoft.
>
> Hexadecimal error messags with a couple hundred thousand characters are of
> no direct help to end users. There needs to be a way to interpret these
> messages in real time so there can the information gleaned can spell
repair
> efficacy.
>
____________________________________________________________________________
____
>
> Mini-White Paper:
>
> *How Microsoft *Totally* Fails to Stand Behind Microsoft Office and
Support
> TheirProducts Because of the Poor Quality of Their Contract Support;
> Microsoft Support is an Oxymoron*
>
>
> Hidden or camouflaged among the Longhorn, TechNet, and MSDN Evangelist
> buzz/blogs and great initiatives in a company full of dedicated and
> multi-talented people at MSFT is a phenomenon that truly contstitutes the
> dirty underbelly of Microsoft--"support" that is not Microsoft at all--but
> an abusive sham that is a lucrative contract held by Convergys of Ohio who
> boasts on their web site that they have a staff full of attorneys who are
> ex-staffers on the hill (in the American Congress), and that they provide
> world class support. This is a prime rip off of Microsoft and it's
> customers. Whether that means "don't mess with us" or "we get results
and
> our calls returned inside the Beltway" I don't know or really care. The
> major call centers for Convergys of Ohio are in Nova Scotia and on
> Newfoundland known by many in Canada as "the rock."
>
> On their site, Convergys boasts they "take care of their customers." I'm
> going to outline *how* they take care of their customers with a $500 box
of
> Office Pro or SBE. It's my understanding that Tony Soprano takes care of
> his customers as well. "Bada-Bing Bada-Boom" is the corporate ethos when
it
> comes to Microsoft's customers for Convergys.
>
> This slogan on the page below should more accurately read "Dispose of Your
> Customers With Convergys--How To Quintessentially Jerk Them Around and
Dump
> Them Fast and Show Complete Disdain For Them" Convergys reports revenues
of
> 2.3 Billion, and can decimate the support for a $500 box of MOS 2003.
Even
> if Convergys employees know nothing about the product, that doesn't stop
> them from charging full steam ahead with their unique and potent combo of
> arrogance and ignorance.
>
>
> Take "Better Care of Your Customers" With Convergys
> http://www.convergys.com/company_overview.html#better_care
>
> This is one aspect of Microsoft where Steve Sinofsky, Jeff Raikes, Doug
> Burgum, Paul Flessner, Eric Rudder, Lindsay Sparks, Jodi-Ueker-Rust,
Henry
> Vigil, SQL Server Product Manager Kirsten Ward, and a number of others are
> asleep at the switch.
>
> If one goes to the Microsoft Office site and reads every possible web page
> associated with Outlook and BCM, they will find none of the many hoops
that
> may be necessary to get BCM installed and up and running due to its use of
> the MSDE 2000. The tack taken is rather to scatter a few (and leave many
> out) of the tips throughout 15 KBs and construct a 'Redmond Raiders of the
> Lost Ark' search.
>
> Tech Support Microsoft style has been an enormously egregious time
wasting
> experience. I want to distinguish Microsoft from Convergys here for
good
> reason. I was having trouble associating BCM with Outlook. I had read all
> KBs, and appreciated and took all the suggestions posted in the Outlook
and
> BCM public newsgroups, here and on the web. I did everything possible
to
> keep the MSDE 2000 data base engine "happy" with respect to user profile,
> services started, and file and print sharing.
>
> After talking with a number of contract support people who were not
> Microsoft of course, but actually Convergys although they lied and claimed
> they were Microsoft employees, and whose offerings consistently were to
go
> to the OL toolbar and add BCM and getting the same crashes over 100 times.
> No less than 10 appointments were made during the month over a period of 4
> hours for each two day tandem. My support case was "escalated" to "BCM
> research" No one from Convergys ever kept the appointments, or had the
> courtesy or common sense to call and say something got in the way of the
> obligation.
>
> This was of course extremely time wasteful because you have to be at the
> machine ready to "work with them," and by a clear phone line. It also
> meant while Microsoft employees are very conscious of their own schedules,
> PDAs, Tablets, Laptops, "SharePoint workspace meetings", meeting requests
> and meeting workspaces, and Outlook calendars and schedules, they could
> care less about the time and obligations of anyone else. There was never
an
> apology for these missed appointments by the glorified Microsoft phone
> router manager that the phone answering temps from still another company
> referred me to. The problem of 10 four hour periods that were scheduled
and
> blown off was brushed aside. Imagine what might happen to you if you
stand
> Ballmer, Raikes, Sinofsky, Burghum, Flessner or Rudder up for a scheduled
> meeting, let alone ten of them, and you're on their payroll.
>
> When I called to try to find out what happened, after trying to email
> several managers@microsoft.com I got emails from two Canadian Convergys
> employees in Novascotia assuring me of escalation and prompt
> calls but none came, nor were any actually planned.
>
> Finally, after calling back I was told a call would be coming. The
> gentleman said he had "1/2 hour," and essentially played what I now know
is
> the "Convergys BCM toolbar game" to hit the toolbar for a BCM add-in and
> watch the crash. He asked me to email the error messages about 3 weeks
> ago, said someone would be in touch and no one was. The error messages
are
> all in
> hexadecimal; you can't paste them; and you have nothing with which to
decode
> them. I screen shot them, and I pasted the ones I could in text. I
emailed
> these to every SP listed who had owned the case as well as the managers at
> Convergys who did not seem to know much about software in general, and
> certainly Windows as I later found out when they called error messages
> directed at NT Build 2600 the default XP Launch build a beta SP2 build.
>
> I never heard from them. When I called and got a manger of call routers
who
> claimed he was a Microsoft employee, He was over the top hostile, and
> said your only support option is our contractors--take it or leave it or
> I'll end the case and prevent you rcalling. It was also clear he knew as
> little about Office as he did about Windows which is also the index of
> Convergys' level of skill.
>
> I received an email the next day saying my case had been closed because
Iwas
> using a Beta OS. In fact, reproduced the same errors on Windows XP
default
> launch build, Windows XP SP1, and every current SP2 build. They had
> nothing to do with the build ofWindows period.
>
> The non-technical Canadian manager who killed the case didn't seem to give
> me credit for having the trouble-shooting sense to uninstalling a Beta
and
> BCM and to reinstall them which I had done weeks before the case was
> "escalated" or asking for help. This is an old Convergys ploy. They'll
> do anything they can to squirm out of support, particularly in a case like
> this where they know nothing about BCM.
>
> Convergys also does Comcast support. A couple years ago just before
the
> XP launch, they were telling people that Windows XP did not workwell
with
> Comcast's suste,. so that they could blow off support calls when
> disconnections from the internet were due to problems on the line beyond
the
> tap, and upstream line decibel readings were well outside normal limits.
I
> pointed out that Bill Gates bankrolled Comcast's start and this
> was absurd since Windows XP has a number of networking and broadband
> configuration enhancements compared to other OS's and Wintendo (Win 9X),
and
> those are well discussed in the archives of TechNet, MSDN, and the XP web
> pages on Microsoft's site that reference networking--some written by MS
> MVPs.
>
> A cracked RJ6 cable outside and several hardware problems beyond the cable
> tap were the problem. This was Convergys being Convergys and I might add,
> not being Microsoft. Convergys will do anything to weasle out of support,
> because with them, the emperor has no clothes and they know little about
> much of the software they are purported to have SPs (service
professionals)
> for.
>
> In other words, Microsoft who touts that they make excellent software
> products contracts with some of the most incompetent support on the
planet.
>
> After I pointed out the only move several Convergys tech support people
> including their BCM "research" team had was to click on the toolbar to
try
> to add in BCM, and had little understanding of the use of the SQL server
> MSDN 2000 that had been adapted as a miniversion for BCM, or the KBs the
> phone routing supervisor who alleged he was a MS employee in a suburb near
> Redmond snarled to take it or leave it and I got an email stating the same
> thing.
>
> This made me wonder: If Mr. Sinofsky and Mr. Raikes were getting the same
> crash, would they sit at their desks and click on the toolbar for months
and
> embrace the Microsoft phone manager's mandate to keep on keeping on?
>
> If I were on that product group, or part of the endless number of
managers
> for Office products, and I were Steve Sinofsky Office VP, Jeff Raikes and
> the rest of the Office VPs, I'd want Microsoft to stand behind a $500
> Microsoft box. What I have seen has been disingenous with
> respect to that concept. In other words, Microsoft ain't supportin' no
BCM
> or Office boxes for any of us no how. I have the emails and broken
> appointments and insistence that I keep clicking the toolbar to prove it.
I
> also don't speak hexidecimal, and make extensive use of the Event Viewer
> when I can.
>
> Microsoft needs to start supporting their products for real. I don't
> believe anyone at Convergys knows a great deal about BCM and wish when
> theypost instead of the alias [MSFT] those who are Convergys would be up
> front and proud of their $2 plus billion dollar grossing company. Most of
> us aren't fooled, and most of us know aV-1 or V-2 email is from a
Convergys
> employee or other contract employee and not a Microsoft employee. It
would
> not so much matter if the support personnel were part of J-Lo's back stage
> roadies, if they knew something about the product they were supposed to
> support and honored appointments.
>
> I don't believe on the user rather than enterprise or medium business
level
> Microsoft, the Redmond company where Jeff Raikes works, supports their
own
> products at all, and I have substantive evidence to back this up.
>
> Convergys is the *nasty* and completely incompetent underbelly of
> Microsoftsupport. I would urge anyone who gets this treatment not to be
> satisfiedwith it as an end result and to take it up with the real
> *Microsoft,* notConvergys of Ohio. I'm hardly the lone ranger in this
> perception; I've seen itfor years on the XP, IE, OE newsgroups on the web
as
> well as the MS groups.I see posts for help that begin "I couldn't solve
this
> with long waits forMicrosoft support." Youweren't waiting for Microsoft;
> you were waiting for their "support" from Convergys.
>
> Not every secretary or small business user has a help desk or IT team
with
> a heads up Sys/Ad or CTO attached to them. Not all of these people are
> Active Directory, Windows Server 2003, Group Policy, SQL/Exchange
> Afficianados with a million hacks for these products at their finger tips
> and unfortunately the vast majority of them have never heard of an MSKB
and
> will never see one. None of them speaks hexadecimal or has the means to
> interpret a long scroll down hexadecimal message that is the business end
of
> their errors and crashes when that's all that is available to them. Most
> secretary and small business users have never heard of putting
> "eventvwr.msc" into their run boxes, and even if they had, they would
still
> often be stuck with hexadecimal coded errors and no means to interpret
them
> and turn them into constructive fixes.
>
> Chad Harris
>
>

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