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> But this, once an IT tech leader, became utterly incompetent in IT. And for me, it’s a pity. The rose tint is strong in these glasses. When was their support

by eviks 1y ago

> But this, once an IT tech leader, became utterly incompetent in IT. And for me, it’s a pity. The rose tint is strong in these glasses. When was their support great? Or is the author simply confused about what tech they were a lead in?

nicman23 1y ago
wasnt it in the vista days that ms went "let them eat forum" and basically yeeted all of their support >?
bryanrasmussen 1y ago
I bet support is probably pretty difficult to do well especially when you have lots of different products and a large international customer base. So I am quite willing to accept the idea that MS support was at one time the best one could get, for those particular very rare combination of problems, while also being apt to frustrate people using that support. All that said - do you have a better example of support for a company with similar to MS needs?
rincebrain 1y ago
I have a lot of strong opinions about Microsoft, but at least during the Vista era, I once called their support without a support contract because someone's machine was very weirdly fucked after trying to upgrade to Vista, and I spoke to someone who spent an hour on the phone digging through weird registry crap and known issues to figure out how to successfully get the machine upgraded and working again. I was pleasantly surprised, having expected crappy support. So I can confirm they did at least at one point have good support, and more broadly, I think it's not unfair to describe them as having had a great handle on what people wanted in user experiences and support, with how much they bent over backwards to fix compatibility issues for many years. I've also been told their support if you had a support contract was great, but I never was in a position to explore that firsthand. Those days are, of course, gone, but they were known for that for a while.
II2II 1y ago
I can't speak for Microsoft since I've never dealt with them directly, but descriptions of the level of support offered to consumers in the eighties and early nineties would be beyond belief to those who didn't live through it. You would dial a toll-free number, talk to a real person who would diagnose the problem and fix it. If it was a known fixed bug, they would mail you a software update. If the bug didn't have a fix, there was still a chance it would be fixed in the current version. At least my experience with Corel, IBM, and, WordPerfect were all like that. How the companies could afford that level of support is beyond me.
- aucisson_masque 1y ago
  > How the companies could afford that level of support is beyond me. They weren’t squeezing everything they can to get bigger profit to the shareholders ? It’s not like Microsoft is barely surviving atm, they make excellent profit and could very well spend some on support but decided not to at some point.
- pas 1y ago
  Software was less complicated. Not that many layers, not that many supported platforms/configurations, etc. Networking was simpler, if any. And in general, pushing updates was not near zero-cost like today. So there was a bit of QA.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
In the 90s/2000s their Microsoft SQL Server support was amazing. They would go through traces with you and explain everything going on, what different techniques could be applied, performance considerations, etc from the highest level down to disk access. Their SQL support literally changed my skills to a point it changed my career. They could have recorded those calls and sold access they were so good and explained things so well.

by eviks 1y ago

nicman23 1y ago

wasnt it in the vista days that ms went "let them eat forum" and basically yeeted all of their support >?

bryanrasmussen 1y ago

I bet support is probably pretty difficult to do well especially when you have lots of different products and a large international customer base. So I am quite willing to accept the idea that MS support was at one time the best one could get, for those particular very rare combination of problems, while also being apt to frustrate people using that support. All that said - do you have a better example of support for a company with similar to MS needs?

rincebrain 1y ago

I have a lot of strong opinions about Microsoft, but at least during the Vista era, I once called their support without a support contract because someone's machine was very weirdly fucked after trying to upgrade to Vista, and I spoke to someone who spent an hour on the phone digging through weird registry crap and known issues to figure out how to successfully get the machine upgraded and working again. I was pleasantly surprised, having expected crappy support. So I can confirm they did at least at one point have good support, and more broadly, I think it's not unfair to describe them as having had a great handle on what people wanted in user experiences and support, with how much they bent over backwards to fix compatibility issues for many years. I've also been told their support if you had a support contract was great, but I never was in a position to explore that firsthand. Those days are, of course, gone, but they were known for that for a while.

II2II 1y ago

I can't speak for Microsoft since I've never dealt with them directly, but descriptions of the level of support offered to consumers in the eighties and early nineties would be beyond belief to those who didn't live through it. You would dial a toll-free number, talk to a real person who would diagnose the problem and fix it. If it was a known fixed bug, they would mail you a software update. If the bug didn't have a fix, there was still a chance it would be fixed in the current version. At least my experience with Corel, IBM, and, WordPerfect were all like that. How the companies could afford that level of support is beyond me.

aucisson_masque 1y ago
> How the companies could afford that level of support is beyond me. They weren’t squeezing everything they can to get bigger profit to the shareholders ? It’s not like Microsoft is barely surviving atm, they make excellent profit and could very well spend some on support but decided not to at some point.
pas 1y ago
Software was less complicated. Not that many layers, not that many supported platforms/configurations, etc. Networking was simpler, if any. And in general, pushing updates was not near zero-cost like today. So there was a bit of QA.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

In the 90s/2000s their Microsoft SQL Server support was amazing. They would go through traces with you and explain everything going on, what different techniques could be applied, performance considerations, etc from the highest level down to disk access. Their SQL support literally changed my skills to a point it changed my career. They could have recorded those calls and sold access they were so good and explained things so well.