Microsoft and the Hate Bandwagon

[Trivun]

Now, let me just start by saying that for a very long time, I was a member of this bandwagon. Admittedly, I had my own bad experiences with Microsoft, like the fact that Windows XP is a load of crap (yes, I know that goes against other people's experiences, but I've had nothing but problems with XP while Vista is surprisingly reliable and much easier to use for me). However, I noticed that there was much hate directed towards Microsoft in particular, and this comes from a variety of reasons (high prices and bad performance, monopoly tendencies, RRoD and so on). But I was recently pleasantly surprised when I had the dreaded RRoD myself.

It happened just after Christmas, and since I was at university I waited until being home for Easter before sending it for repair. I phoned Customer Service and enquired what to do, and being in the UK it was a surprise to hear an American on the other end (not too surprising, MS is a US company after all). However, Customer Service were exceptionally helpful and gave good advice, explained clearly how to go about sending for repair, and best of all, the advice was free (0800 number, you see. Freephone in the UK). Brilliant service straight from the Devil. How odd.

That was about a fortnight ago. The only delay in repair has been on my part (I waited about 4 days before printing the postage labels) and yesterday I recieved an email saying that the Xbox, sent to Berlin for repairs, is on its way home. It'll be here in a couple of days.

The point of this thread is that Microsoft has always had a reputation as a money grabbing waster that loves to crap all over its customers and take our money. However, this isn't the case. My experience shows a company that cares about its customers and wants to give a good service and be recognised as a good company. So why all the Microsoft hate? Post your thoughts here and let's see if we can find an answer to why Microsoft gets all this bad press and such a horrible reputation.

 

[Inverse Skies]

Microsoft is like any other big company - they're target for a lot of villification because people have a few bad experiences which get over exaggerated in the media and suddenly it's seen as 'cool' or 'trendy' to jump on that bandwagon.

I couldn't care less about Microsoft, although I think it's a bit rich to make me pay 400 bucks for Office after I just shipped out 1000 for a new laptop. Luckily Dad is a school teacher so thankyou! Nice way around that.

 

[Erana]

Yep.
I need to go after Acer instead. This laptop keeps failing me.

*proceeds to go to Taiwan to settle this*

 

[Tech Team FTW!]

I find Microsoft products to be superior to most of the Mac related dreg on the market today. I have only had positive experiences with customer support as well. My oly problem with them is making me, a PC gamer, pay for games for windows live for it to be any good.

By the way, I think this thread should have gone in the Off Topic section.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

UM, it's still a disgrace that the 360 was released as flawed as it was, and windows is hopelessly un-user friendly unless you are a computer wizz, which most of its users are not.

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[More Fun To Compute]

Microsoft are quite bad at making hardware compared to many electronics companies. It's nice that they are repairing your console but you probably will not be so grateful after the 5th failure which happens to some people.

Microsoft software and games are not all bad but they are far from always being the best.

 

[Tech Team FTW!]

UM, it's still a disgrace that the 360 was released as flawed as it was, and windows is hopelessly un-user friendly unless you are a computer wizz, which most of its users are not.

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Have you actually used a Mac before?
The user friendliness on that goes past the shite marker and all the way to Michael Atkinson's front door. The Mac is about the only other operating system on the market right now so Windows is my preferred system.

Note: I am just voicing my opinion.

 

[Ultress]

The experinances I've had with tech support were for RROD but when i called they were helpful albeit a little hard to understand and they repaired it for free and it only took a few weeks,I've been mad at them for my second 360 dieing out in less than a week but again it was free to repair and ship so I'm just fine with them. As for the PC side my only fault with them is installing that piece of crap Word Perfect and that might not be there fault at all.

It's stupid that they released the 360 with it's flaws but they seem to be pretty good about repairs from my experince and some others

 

[hannahdonno]

I actually think Microsoft is quite good, technoogly wise. However their unreliability with ALL their systems makes me wanna puke. But then it is interesting to note that the reason most of the PCs mess up is due to all the haters creating 3498325 viruses which will destroy my computer. Kinda like messing up someones hair then proceeding to get angry and telling them how much of a scruff they are.

 

[Doug]

UM, it's still a disgrace that the 360 was released as flawed as it was, and windows is hopelessly un-user friendly unless you are a computer wizz, which most of its users are not.

Error 134865u5hdwieufhew94ufhnei

Have you actually used a Mac before?
The user friendliness on that goes past the shite marker and all the way to Michael Atkinson's front door. The Mac is about the only other operating system on the market right now so Windows is my preferred system.

Note: I am just voicing my opinion.

Well, there is Linux as well, but even with a graphical interface, I couldn't recommend it after having to use it for computer science modules.

 

[Antiparticle]

When my 360 broke down, replacing it was quick, easy and free. So I agree that not everthing about Microsoft is bad. My 360 still shouldn't have broken down in the first place though, it was new and I only had it for six months...

 

[MiracleOfSound]

UM, it's still a disgrace that the 360 was released as flawed as it was, and windows is hopelessly un-user friendly unless you are a computer wizz, which most of its users are not.

Error 134865u5hdwieufhew94ufhnei

Have you actually used a Mac before?
The user friendliness on that goes past the shite marker and all the way to Michael Atkinson's front door. The Mac is about the only other operating system on the market right now so Windows is my preferred system.

Note: I am just voicing my opinion.

Yep used macs for music recording, a lot more reliable than PC but still prone to crashes and bugs.

They both need a lot of work...

 

[Trivun]

By the way, I think this thread should have gone in the Off Topic section.

Right, thanks for that, I'll ask a moderator to move it ASAP.

Update: I am now even more pleased with Microsoft because I got my Xbox 360 back about half an hour ago, days before theys aid it would be back, and they've completely replaced it with the latest version which has been reported as having an improved cooling system (so less chance of RRoD), given a full apology for the RRoD and a free 1 month Gold membership card (with no use by date so it's valid forever ) and have sorted out all the technical things like changing the warranty and stuff which I would normally have to do myself (you wouldn't believe the problems I had when my first mp3 player and my CD player went bust, the warranty took ages to sort out and repairs were due a huge delay).

 

[timmytom1]

The RROD helpline is very useful in fact the only problem i`ve has with MS is my stupidity in tieing a hotmail account that i never used to my xbox live account meaning i can`t touch it and xbox.com (having reactivated my hotmail) thinks i`m someone else

 

[oktalist]

My experience shows a company that cares about its customers and wants to give a good service and be recognised as a good company. So why all the Microsoft hate?

Because your experience is unusual among Microsoft customers.

For me the last straw on the back of the Microsoft donkey was when Windows Update turned Vista into a unresponsive turd bucket with no networking and it took two weeks to cure and it's still not fully fixed. I refuse to use Windows any more. By releasing bug-filled operating systems, then releasing patch upon patch upon patch, and then waiting until almost all the bugs are finally fixed before releasing another bug-filled version of the same operating system wearing a different hat, repeated ad infinitum, they are Doing It Wrong.

But then it is interesting to note that the reason most of the PCs mess up is due to all the haters creating 3498325 viruses which will destroy my computer. Kinda like messing up someones hair then proceeding to get angry and telling them how much of a scruff they are.

Virus writers do not hate Microsoft, by any stretch of the imagination. They are in fact among its biggest fans.

Well, there is Linux as well, but even with a graphical interface, I couldn't recommend it after having to use it for computer science modules.

Which distribution were you using?

I will be happy to go back to using Windows as soon as it becomes open source. Which it will need to, if Microsoft is to survive.

 

[Doug]

Well, there is Linux as well, but even with a graphical interface, I couldn't recommend it after having to use it for computer science modules.

Which distribution were you using?

I will be happy to go back to using Windows as soon as it becomes open source. Which it will need to, if Microsoft is to survive.

Gnome, I think it was.

 

[Wargamer]

The problem I see here is there's always a certain flaw in logic from the 360 crowd...

"My 360 broke but Microsoft were very helpful in fixing it."

Okay, let's list the consoles that I own...

SNES - Still in working order (but I lost the aerial wire).
MEGADRIVE - Still in working order.
GAMEBOY - Still works.
GAMEBOY ADVANCE - Still works.
PSX - The first one died after four years due to disk-reader problems. This problem was not present on the newer PSX's. Replacement PSX would still work if I hadn't crushed it.
N64 - Still fine.
PS2 - Disk reader died two weeks ago. Replacement works fine.
GAMECUBE - Never had any problems.
NINTENDO DS - No problems at all.
PS3 - No problems so far.

So, the worst offender is Sony, whose first-run models have / had faulty disk readers. Even then, they last well beyond the warranty.

If the Xbox / 360 had a tendency to die after 4-5 years of use, I could accept that as part of life. The fact is a lot of people seem to come up with stories of it dying within a year of purchase, and sometimes within weeks of being repaired / replaced!

Being nice about fixing it is no excuse - it shouldn't break to begin with.

 

[oktalist]

Well, there is Linux as well, but even with a graphical interface, I couldn't recommend it after having to use it for computer science modules.

Which distribution were you using?

Gnome, I think it was.

No, Gnome is a desktop GUI environment :-/

Ubuntu is basically the one you want for user-friendliness. I would expect a CS course to avoid making things too user-friendly, or else what would there be to learn?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Micro$oft sux!


/sarcasm

Every company's end goal is profit, no matter what they claim.
Microsoft isn't any different, so why do they get portrayed as especially bad?

I have had good experiences with Gamestop, too. I also understand why they don't give you much for your used games. If no one buys them, they are in the red, not making any profit.

 

[Laughing Man]

Now, let me just start by saying that for a very long time, I was a member of this bandwagon. Admittedly, I had my own bad experiences with Microsoft, like the fact that Windows XP is a load of crap (yes, I know that goes against other people's experiences, but I've had nothing but problems with XP while Vista is surprisingly reliable and much easier to use for me). However, I noticed that there was much hate directed towards Microsoft in particular, and this comes from a variety of reasons (high prices and bad performance, monopoly tendencies, RRoD and so on). But I was recently pleasantly surprised when I had the dreaded RRoD myself.

It happened just after Christmas, and since I was at university I waited until being home for Easter before sending it for repair. I phoned Customer Service and enquired what to do, and being in the UK it was a surprise to hear an American on the other end (not too surprising, MS is a US company after all). However, Customer Service were exceptionally helpful and gave good advice, explained clearly how to go about sending for repair, and best of all, the advice was free (0800 number, you see. Freephone in the UK). Brilliant service straight from the Devil. How odd.

That was about a fortnight ago. The only delay in repair has been on my part (I waited about 4 days before printing the postage labels) and yesterday I recieved an email saying that the Xbox, sent to Berlin for repairs, is on its way home. It'll be here in a couple of days.

The point of this thread is that Microsoft has always had a reputation as a money grabbing waster that loves to crap all over its customers and take our money. However, this isn't the case. My experience shows a company that cares about its customers and wants to give a good service and be recognised as a good company. So why all the Microsoft hate? Post your thoughts here and let's see if we can find an answer to why Microsoft gets all this bad press and such a horrible reputation.

LOL this is like the idiots that thank God for not being seriously hurt in a car accident. If God actually cared about you you wouldn't have had the accident in the first place. In the context of this posts if MS actually gave a damn about it's customers it wouldn't have flooded the market with a console that had significant design flaws. It wouldn't have taken several years to launch a rework that removes those flaws. MS does not deserve congratulations for quickly repairing a unit it knew was faulty from day one.

The same could be said for a lot of their software, released broken and it takes several years to fix it. In software terms that is fine especially for something like an OS but you can't justify using that design approach for a home gaming console, so any complaints aimed at MS with regards to their XBox are justified, they fucked up in a big way and quick repairs and extended warranties was the only way they could retain any level of customer confidence in any future gaming consoles. Hate aimed at their OS, well that's a debate that will continue for along long time.