Microsoft announced at their Worldwide Partner Conference last week that they are going to be offering free phone support in the SMB space for customers purchasing new computers with Vista installed on them. The support is meant to help the customers adapt to the new OS and to assist in resolving application compatibility issues. If the issues cannot be addressed the company will even help their customers downgrade the system to Windows XP, assuming they have the manufacturer’s downgrade CD available. From the FAQ:
In cases where a small business customer cannot overcome an incompatibility issue and has the PC's recovery media disc for Windows XP, we are equipped to help with a downgrade over the phone.
It is interesting to me that this announcement was made at the partner conference, where normally the vendor would be pumping up the partners, not effectively admitting that the partners aren’t willing or able to sell and support the new OS. I think that it is more of the former than the latter – partners are not selling Vista because it isn’t compelling and most companies don’t want to spend the money on the user training and rebuilding of their desktop images and processes.
Still, Microsoft is pushing ahead full bore, with plans to go on the attack over the Mac v PC Guy ads, among other things. Its a good thing they still have all the marketing dollars available to help push the product that folks don’t seem to actually want or need.
More info here.
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