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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Phil Melemed who wrote (8920)	7/3/1998 3:17:00 PM
From: Bearded One	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

So what is a (home user on non-computer-professional) customer to do? - Don't be first in line for upgrades, unless you understand the risks; - Check with your hardware vendor for compatibility statements before upgrading operating systems; - Wait to buy a new machine with a new vendor-supplied and vendor-tested OS unless you need the new OS feature immediately. What is a hardware/software vendor to do? - Stop propagating the idea that installing hardware and software is as simple as playing a music CD or a videotape, unless you can guarantee that it really is that foolproof; - Remember that customers installing software may not be as sophisticated as your employees, and that you should make installation and upgrade be easier to understand than figuring out how to program a VCR. - Figure in the support cost of incompatibilities into your price, bug-fix criteria and release schedule. Therein lies the problem. A half million copies of Windows 98 sold in the first few days. How many of those were to people who thought it was like installing a CD or videotape? Does the box say "Warning-- should only be installed by an experienced technician?". If you want to get a new engine for your car, do you go to "EngineUSA" and pick up a new engine? Yet Microsoft sells this at CompUSA just like a game or word processor. And how many of the people who installed Windows 98 will be know how to download some multi-megabyte service patch over the internet? Especially if they screwed up their computer by installing Windows 98? The responsible thing to have done would have been to just sell Windows 98 to the OEMS for four or five months, collected more info, updated it, and then offered it retail. Or maybe have authorized service centers that do the upgrade for you. But now, thousands or tens of thousands of people are staring at pieces of metal they used to know as their computer. It's not right. And I'm sorry, Mozek, if this is just another example of me bashing Microsoft. I really want to be positive about the company--they do a lot of good things and have a lot of great products. But ten good things does not outrank one bad thing, and the way Windows 98 has been released with all these problems ranks as a bad thing for consumers.