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Buying VMWare Fusion: A lesson in how to drive customers away
- obilgic 16y agohttp://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/75-how-not-to-design-a-checkout/ http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/75-how-not-to-design...
- steveklabnik 16y agoSo, I watched this whole thing. Then I noticed the URL on the end... Here it is: http://download.navicat.com/download/navicat8_mysql_en.dmg http://download.navicat.com/download/navicat8_mysql_en.dmg Go ahead. Click it.
- jarek 16y agoThe URL loads a lot of quite clearly non-plain text data served as text/plain. Am I missing something?
- steveklabnik 16y agoReally? It downloads a .dmg for me...
- jarek 16y agoContent-Type is text/plain, Content-Disposition is not set. Your browser overrides content type based on file name "extension", at least for commonly misused types.
- steveklabnik 16y agoGotcha. Regardless, it's their software. After all that, it's not even an expiring URL, or obfuscated, or anything.
- uxp 16y agoYou can get newer releases from their page directly, in case anyone wanted to try navicat. It's a pretty good utility, though I personally still like to use the respective SQL server command line utility shells. It's a 30-day trial. http://www.navicat.com/en/download/download.html http://www.navicat.com/en/download/download.html
- butterfi 16y agoI used Navicat for along time, and its not bad software. These days though I've been using the free "Sequel Pro" for OS X. Does all the same things I need to do, as long as I'm on a mac. http://www.sequelpro.com/ http://www.sequelpro.com/
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Pooter 16y agoI had roughly this same experience with buying VMWare Fusion two years ago. Nice to see they're paying attention to customers.
- froydnj 16y agoAfter two years and a rant that happened to get posted to a major tech news site. Doesn't really sound like "paying attention to customers" to me. How many times has this happened in the past two years and why haven't things gotten any better?
- tzs 16y agoHe guesses VMWare stores credit cards based on them using the last 4 digits to help identify orders. Actually, it is probably Digital River, not VMWare. VMWare uses Digital River to handle actually process orders. (That's why the site he went to for order lookup was findmyorder.com, not vmware.com. Findmyorder.com is a Digital River site). You can't really infer credit card storage from them keeping the last 4. Merchants need to keep the first 6 and last 4 in order to process chargebacks and refunds. When a customer charges back all the bank tells the merchant is first 6, last 4, and amount of charge back (oh, and the date of the charge back). Furthermore, the amount does not always match an amount the merchant charged. So, the merchant needs to be able to look up orders by first 6/last 4, approximate amount, and date-that-it-must-have-been-before. PCI allows first 6 and last 4 to be stored unencrypted and kept as part of general customer information. The strict security requirements (encryption, kept off of networks not involved with actually using the card, and so on) only apply to the rest of the digits.
- maguay 16y agoYes, it definitely sounds like a typical Digital River experience. They're really a mess. Microsoft uses them to fulfill online Microsoft Office orders, and it takes so many steps you want to scream. If there are no other reasons, this is why I want a solid App Store on Windows that has every app I'd want to buy. Seriously; it's just too much trouble to give companies money sometimes!
- pyre 16y agoThe solution isn't necessarily an App Store on Windows, it's to build better purchasing experiences. You're reasoning is sort of like: "I have serious issues with all GM cars due to shoddy quality, therefore all cars must be manufactured by Toyota because I like them."
- Pooter 16y agoI think his reasoning is more like "I see a fundamental design flaw in all other cars which Toyota has recognized and addressed in a way that I like, and wish other manufacturers would adopt that solution or one similar to it." You don't have to agree, but don't poo-poo his desire for a unified, simple application purchasing experience in his OS of choice. That's a customer talking about what they want out of a product.
- wh-uws 16y agoIf you are not in need of customer support the answer to this problem is to use Virutalbox http://www.virtualbox.org/ http://www.virtualbox.org/ Its just about as fast, has all the same features (including 3d support) and best of all its free and opensource
- foljs 16y agoYes, using a less stable and less supported program is somehow better.
- anto1ne 16y agoI guess this http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VBox_vs_Others http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VBox_vs_Others makes it clear
- pyre 16y agoI wonder why they don't have parallel port support.
- dfox 16y agoBecause most things you would want to do with parallel port that actually work through all the layers of virtualization and emulation (ie. connecting a printer) can be done equally well with emulated serial port.
- Locke1689 16y agoThis is an inaccurate comparison to VMWare Fusion. There are many features, e.g. Bootcamp partition virtualization, that virtualbox either forgot to mention or purposely excluded.
- vasi 16y agoVirtualBox can actually do physical-partition virtualization, but you have to produce a VMDK file that points to the partition you want, and use that as the virtual disk. (Oh, and run VBox as root.) Conveniently, I've written some code to produce such a file: https://github.com/vasi/vmdk-raw-parts https://github.com/vasi/vmdk-raw-parts . Enjoy!
- Ahmes 16y agoI'm sorry, but how is this news worthy? As far as I can tell, some guy bought a copy of VMWare Fusion with a moderately poor customer experience, can't activate it within the first half hour, writes a blog post to complain and gets his buddies at Fog Creek to upvote. Why on earth did you think other people would be interested in this?
- rkudeshi 16y agoSeriously? This is a major company with some very big problems regarding how they handle (or outsource) legitimate digital purchases. It's this kind of crap that drives people to piracy (with justification).
- wtallis 16y agoYou know you're doing something wrong when your customers would rather trust binaries downloaded via bittorrent than trust your online store with their credit card number.
- epo 16y agoWhat justification? If someone can't cope with a buying process then they shouldn't buy, it is no excuse for stealing. This is as asinine as seeing a long queue at a supermarket and declaring this is "justification" for walking out with the goods without paying.
- rkudeshi 16y agoI mean that people who engage in piracy can claim they do so because it's difficult for them to easily and legally purchase the same item. When VMWare moves to a simpler (perhaps iTunes-like) system, then pirates have no rational justification.
- marknutter 16y agoIt's a justification. You don't have to agree with it, but not doing so doesn't make it any less of a justification.
- devicenull 16y agofindmyorder.com really looks like your typical phishing site. I don't think I'd be giving them any of my information.
- embwbam 16y agoI actually ended up using a pirated serial after I'd purchased VMWare because it was easier to get than the legitimate one.
- X-Istence 16y agoThis has been my experience as well ...
- tdfx 16y agoI use VMWare Fusion all the time. I spent 30 minutes trying to buy it and 30 seconds getting a pirated serial. I think the software is well worth the price and I'd happily give them the money if they could provide a reasonable way for me to do so.
- mwsherman 16y agoThis is what's selling me on OS-vendor-provided App Stores. Of course there are many reasons a self-respecting hacker would turn up their nose at such a thing. But product activation and billing really should not be novel experiences in 2011.
- patio11 16y agoTo be fair, you can do a lot better than Digital River, whose code is largely stuck in 1998. I mean, BCC can phone home to the server to get a registration key without the user ever needing to read their onscreen instructions (quite helpful because they frequently don't). It takes less than a day of engineer time to take 90% of the pain out of this. (Though I don't think that is an option if management has decided to go with Digital River -- then you're pretty much at the mercy of their operation.)
- Locke1689 16y agoI got my VMWare Fusion key in the email. Two seconds, confirmed. I guess YMMV. I've been a closed beta tester for VMWare Fusion for ~2 years as well.
- ironkeith 16y agoI recently bought Parallels, and it wasn't much better. From the email I sent them (after I finally found an email address): - When I arrived on the checkout page (from the link in the nice email you sent), you had tacked on a $8 digital backup fee. That is a complete bullshit charge, and you added it by default with no explanation as to what it was, or why I would want it. It was also not particularly obvious whether or not I could remove said add-on. It is a shameless, low class, money grab. - I switched my pricing from USD to CAD, and you added $10 despite the two currencies trading at parity (I quickly swapped back, and just paid in USD). Another shameless, senseless money grab. - You require my name, home address, email address, and phone number in order for me to purchase downloadable software via Paypal. You do not need any of that information. You want it so that some tool in marketing can have pretty powerpoints. It should be optional. (Making it required simply requires me to make up information; a waste of both our time.) - The “send me email spam” checkbox was checked by default. The only reason for this is to get permission to spam people too lazy to pay attention to the checkout. It’s another tasteless scam formulated by a greedy, customer hostile executive tool. - After purchasing, I entered my serial number, and was informed that I would have to register to receive updates to the software I just purchased. I cannot explain to you how incredibly asinine I find that policy. - The registration process once again required information I didn’t want to give you (requiring me to give you fake information) - After registering, and confirming my registration via email, and entering my email/password combo into the application I was told that I had given invalid credentials, and to try again. (I hadn’t. I’m pretty good with copy/paste.) So I guess NO UPDATES FOR ME?
- patio11 16y agoYou require my name, home address, email address, and phone number in order for me to purchase downloadable software via Paypal. You do not need any of that information. You want it so that some tool in marketing can have pretty powerpoints. It should be optional This is actually less for marketing purposes and more for running anti-fraud analysis, which is a key consideration when you sell software at their scales. When I write my (totally legitimate) Japanese address and phone number combined with my American credit cards, it often ends up in an order getting held for purgatory for 48 ~ 72 hours until I can point them to the resolutions for the last four orders I did through them and the fact that none were chargebacks for being stolen credit cards. Steam also does something similar. You can thank your local pirate. The digital backup fee is scamtastic, and (shockingly) isn't the worst thing they have pulled over the last few years (that would be automatically adding rebill fraud 'coupon booklet' subscriptions to the orders). They split the fee $7 to DR and $1 to the software publisher, which means that for sales of $50 software they make substantially more from that addon than for the software itself at almost all of their (myriad) pricing schemes for the core DR payment processing experience.
- sudonim 16y agoYeah... I've been buying VMWare for my team. After buying it twice online, I started buying it from amazon boxed because it's cheaper than the digital version from VMWare and you can still get the stupid rebate they are currently offering. (I hate rebates).
- jbhelms 16y agoI notice that no one has mentioned Hyper-V yet. While it isn't perfect it is free. Mind you, you do need to be running Windows Server, but if you are already running windows you should consider it. I am curious how it stands up to all the others. Virtual Box didn't have it in their grid.
- krallja 16y agoHyper-V doesn't run on Mac OS X, so I don't think it would be particularly useful in this case.
- aceofspades19 16y agoI've used Hyper-V before and its pretty much garbage compared to VirtualBox and VMWare. 1. There is no usb device support that I could find, and you can't add any devices besides hard disks that I've seen 2. No shared folders at all, you need to use smb to have any file sharing capability, short of setting up ftp 3. They pretty much only support virtualized windows 2008, they have SOME Linux support but thats limited to Red Hat and OpenSuse mostly 4. You can only install it on Windows Server 2008(well thats a given but its still a drawback) 5. Its interface isn't the best, I find it really hard to find stuff and everything is in non-obvious locations
- denimboy 16y agoI have been using VirtualBox on Mac and Linux for a couple years now with fantastic results. Easy upgrades and free as in beer and (most of it) as in speech too. Recently started using Vagrant http://vagrantup.com/ http://vagrantup.com/ to configure virtual machines with VirtualBox and Chef. Awesome. I recommend this combo to all devs.
- Uchikoma 16y agoWhen I bought November last year, I did get the keys in the confirmation email.
- bsergean 16y agoI bet if you buy it from a box at the Apple store you won't run in those kinds of problems.
- rosser 16y agoI've pinged a friend at VMWare about this. It's not her department, but she should be able to pass it along towards the people whose problem it should be. EDIT: Word's been passed along. Don't know if anything will actually come of it, but (at least some of) the people whose problem it should be are aware.
- andybak 16y agoThe real test will be whether they've got the sense to spend 20 minutes signing in here and engaging us in dialogue.
- gecko 16y agoI don't know that anyone engaged us here, but someone from VMware did engage me over at the blog: http://blog.bitquabit.com/2011/02/22/buying-vmware-fusion/#comment-154505634 http://blog.bitquabit.com/2011/02/22/buying-vmware-fusion/#c...
- rosser 16y agoI have no way of knowing if that person is the one my friend contacted (not least because I can't view the comments; do I need a Disqus account to see them, or something? That's a bit of a fail, too, IMO.), but I'm thrilled to see they're talking with you.
- rimantas 16y agoWell… I got Parallels as boxed software sent to me (was working from home). Alas, I got an older version, and upgrading required some mind boggling stupidity (some proof of purchase I did not have, some personal details, etc.) So I decided it was not worth the hassle and bought VMWare Fusion (with my own money) online instead.
- wazoox 16y agoAnd this is why I use Free Software only. Thanks for the reminder.
- samlittlewood 16y agoThe Humble Indie Bundle games pack did this so well: - Very simple purchasing - a single page - Perpetual download codes - No DRM
- hdragomir 16y agoI'm relieved I will never go through this process. This does not sound like a normal checkout process to me.
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- nailer 16y agoThanks for posting this. I use and love VMware products (Fusion now, other products since Workstation 1.0) and I'd forgotten how hair-pullingly painful it was buying Fusion for the first time. This re-jogged those memories.
- jrockway 16y agoI recently downloaded VirtualBox. It runs Windows perfectly and it's Free software.
- aelaguiz 16y agoYou think that's bad, you should hear my experience trying to buy a license to the virtual center for the free version of vmware server in 2009. At one point I had a 3 way call going with VMWare's local vendor and VMWare corporate where they were both denying such a thing as a "free" version of vmware server ever existing. The last few years of dealing with vmware have shown me quite clearly that vmware doesn't care about little guys. They obviously make all of their money from large business customers.
- bane 16y agoSo, to recap: - I bought a product that needed a license key; - in order to use it, I was sent to a 3rd party site I had never dealt with before that provides the keys; - the site requires me to enter part of my credit card as my proof of purchase to use it; - it then takes me to a totally broken page, which, thankfully, has a license key; - that license key is rejected for some indeterminate amount of time by vmware.com due to a known slowness problem with their key distribution system; - once it’s finally not rejected, vmware.com still merrily asks me to give it an email that it knows damn well it didn’t give me but still accepts just the correct key from the key distro site anyways There, I fixed it so it's not such blog spam, buy software much?