Today, I am going to highlight one of the reasons why I have chosen no longer to associate myself with the PC repair industry. For those of you who have never been down this road, this is article is for you.
Imagine that you are a typical consumer looking for a high speed Internet provider. Like many Americans, you end up with DSL provided by your local telephone provider. As part of the agreement for service, you are given the option between two add-on services, one of which happens to be MSN. Even though there is ZERO value actually be provided by this service, companies like Qwest Communications allow MSN to bundle themselves in their existing price plans for DSL. The average person is generally inclined to follow the advice given to them by their provider, as they do not likely have any existing opinions themselves…yet. After all, they bundle it in one price. Whatever, right? Moving on.
So I receive a call from my aunt yesterday. She has been having issues with her PC and based on what she was describing, it sounds like a toss up between spyware and a damaged MSN ISP software install. Now here is where it gets rich. She calls Qwest who rightfully directs her to MSN. The MSN rep has her run through the usual routines that most tech support lines inflict on the end-user. When that turned up nothing, was told that she would need to either contact Microsoft or her PC provider; a small firm within her home state I believe. Here is where things get interesting. MSN then recommends to her that she take the Microsoft tech support route to the tune of roughly $50 USD. Now, if in fact they could seriously be of any assistance, I could see this being money well spent. But MSN knows as well as we do that they will have accomplished little to nothing and end up leaving this person to fend for herself once this support angle fails.
So who is at fault here then? Easy, Qwest. Because Qwest is pushing their customers into bundles with a mind numbingly inferior product, my aunt is left holding the bag.
Wait, can’t we blame Microsoft here? No, but for two different reasons. One, I consider MSN to be a separate entity than Microsoft. And second, even though MSN; like Earthlink and AOL, offer terrible service with a slowly dying product, they did not force themselves onto her desktop (in this instance, anyway). Sure, they (MSN) struck a deal with providers such as Qwest. But it is Qwest, not MSN that put this person in the situation I am ranting about now.
In the end, I would be the first to say that Microsoft does plenty that make my blood curdle. But I also believe that 30% of their poor press comes from them being so big and bloated, that the left hand is oblivious to what the right hand is doing most of the time. In short, I see MSN as being a clear illustration of this.
I have seen things like this before. AOL and Time Warner come to mind. Like TM, Microsoft cannot control every move that MSN makes. Wishful thinking, but the corporate world doesn’t always have this kind of fairly tale ending. If I was Microsoft, I would look at trimming some fat off of my failing PR record and I might start by dropping those subsidiaries that are quite honestly, doing more harm than good. And I believe that I would look at MSN (the ISP) first. But hey, that’s just me.
[tags]MSN,misleading,ISP,bundle,frustration[/tags]