Re: A suggestion to microsoft

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From: S (user_at_host.com)
Date: 10/14/04 

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 22:53:45 -0400

Just to illustrate this point.. here is a copy of my posting to the Dell
site where nobody from Dell seems to care or respond.

Hey Dell is anyone even listening to this message board?
We bought you Media Center 2004 machines instead of going with HP or
Gateway, or anyone else. We are your customers. Now we are sitting on the
sideline watching others offer free (+shipping) upgrades to MCE 2005. I do
not understand what the problem is here. Calling phone support does no good,
nobody has an answer for us. Take a look at the comments popping up on other
MCE boards. People are watching how companies are treating their customers
and making purchasing decisions for this holiday season based on partners
treatment of current MCE owners. We understand that those of us that have
AIW 9000 boards will need to get new video cards to be compatible with MCE
2005. That does not mean that we should be forced to use other means to get
the upgrade. Microsoft has made you our only outlet for this software and we
are depending on you to get this done. Maybe there is a plan, maybe you have
just not announced it yet. Maybe you will announce it tomorrow in New York.
It would be a good opportunity to show MCE owners that they can depend on
Dell not to drop them on their heads...

My point is at the VERY LEAST someone from Dell should have the common
courtesy to acknowledge us and confirm that someone is listening.
MCE is only going to grow, and people are going to look to early adopters
for direction on who to buy from. I can not recommend a company who TOTALLY
ignores their customers on this issue.

Please Chime in on this

"cwg" <cwg@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:30D58CD5-EFB4-4966-9DB5-955888EA92A4@microsoft.com...
> Please answer the question in my other post.
> But here's a comment.
>
> With Christmas very close, and new mce2005 pc's only now starting to hit
> the
> market it seems like counting on that market for holiday sales of the
> extenders is pretty slim. The most like early adopters of the extenders
> are
> current mce owners, given that sp2 brought the installed base up to
> mce2004
> that makes a lot of sense. Should be an easy upgrade to mce2005.
>
> Only microsoft is counting on the oem channel to distribute the update ,
> here is the problem with that business model.
>
> Hp is only offering the update to certain mce 2004 desktop owners and no
> notebook owners. Attempts to find out why or if something may be offered
> are
> met by very rude customer service.
> Even in those cases were the upgrade is available the earliest a user
> could
> obtain it would be 4 to 6 weeks. This cuts it close for holiday sales.
>
> Some active oems last year, have dropped there mce lines and will NOT
> supply
> upgrades, ie. Gateway.
>
> On top of that angry customers are posting all over the web, blogs are
> going
> up and folks including me are encouraging people not to buy mce pc's
> because
> of our problems.
>
> Seems like microsoft has a pr problem and the potential for flat or slow
> holiday sales of its extenders.
>
> Here's a suggested way out.
> We don't see why microsoft couldn't supply a default update, clearly
> labeled
> as non supported, that will only install on machines with mce 2004 already
> installed with a valid product id. For supported versions ms could
> encourage
> customers to go through the normal oem vendor channels.
> The default update could even be included with the xtenders, if microsoft
> did something like this it might help holiday sale numbers and make ms
> look
> like the good guy for a change.
>
> Just a suggestion, but this seems like a reasonable strategy to deal with
> the mess they probably don't even realize they have.

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