{"id":11146,"date":"2008-04-10T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2008-04-10T07:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=11146"},"modified":"2008-04-09T11:42:47","modified_gmt":"2008-04-09T08:42:47","slug":"microsoft-support-a-myth-or-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/10\/microsoft-support-a-myth-or-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft support – a myth or reality?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

gapingvoid<\/a>, a blog well known for cartoons drawn on the back of business cards, has this post<\/a> about monetizing on open source software – a very old discussion, as we know it.\u00a0 In that post, one IT guy is quoted saying:<\/p>\n

“If something goes wrong with Microsoft, I can phone Microsoft up and have it fixed. With Open Source, I have to rely on the community.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s your first thought after reading that?\u00a0 Mine was “Have you ever even called Microsoft support?<\/em>“.\u00a0 It seems that a lot of people believe in this notion of Microsoft support magically fixing whatever problem they might have with any of the Microsoft product.<\/p>\n

The question really is – will they?\u00a0 Myself I never had any experience with Microsoft support, but I know quite a few people who did.\u00a0 Most of them seem to agree that Microsoft support is pretty much like any other technical support service of any other company.\u00a0 Meaning that to get anything good out of it, you have to know how to get through to knowledgeable people and you have to know how to convince them to spend some time with your case.\u00a0 Otherwise, you’ll get into an endless loop of answering machines, checklist questions, and advices like “Please, reboot your computer and call us back<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

I have to say that that makes sense to me.\u00a0 Microsoft is the biggest desktop software vendor.\u00a0 Desktop computer users tend to be the most uninformed and untrained category of users (no offense intended).\u00a0 If even half of them believe in magic of Microsoft support, imagine what Microsoft has to go through to keep their support costs reasonable.\u00a0 If you have a serious problem, you’d probably need to get through all that protection and prove that you know what you are doing and that your case deserves attention.\u00a0 Getting through requires knowledge, experience and patience.\u00a0 How many people of those who believe in Microsoft support actually have the knowledge, experience and patience to get through?\u00a0 I don’t think many do.\u00a0 Am I wrong?
\nP.S.: By the way, there is an interesting discussion in the comments to that original post.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

gapingvoid, a blog well known for cartoons drawn on the back of business cards, has this post about monetizing on open source software – a very old discussion, as we know it.\u00a0 In that post, one IT guy is quoted saying: “If something goes wrong with Microsoft, I can phone Microsoft up and have it … Continue reading Microsoft support – a myth or reality?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62],"tags":[1968,2076,1476,39,1477],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-11146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","tag-business","tag-microsoft","tag-myth","tag-software","tag-support"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11006,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/04\/on-microsoft-and-linux\/","url_meta":{"origin":11146,"position":0},"title":"On Microsoft and Linux","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember the other time I was agreeing with Matt Mullenweg's prediction of Microsoft opening sources of Windows by 2017?\u00c2\u00a0 Remeber I wrote a list of bullets with my reasons?\u00c2\u00a0 Remember the first one being: Neither Microsoft in general, no Bill Gates are stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 They are very much profit oriented. 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