My last live post from Microsoft/Intel Ready to Rock show got quite a bit of attention. It also raised a lot of attention with the press so instead of letting them misquote or take me out of context I figured I should clear up all the details and back them with the community commentary from the people that attended the show.
Presenting The Problem
Make no mistake, the biggest problem with the event was an arrogant presenter that insulted his partners. While some of the feedback he got could have been delivered in a more professional manner, he returned the lack of respect and then some. Here are some of the examples of presenters poor attitude (highly paraphrased) towards negative feedback:
Partner: There is no true “classic” classic view in Vista. This new interface negates all the training businesses have.
Presenter: So you want Windows 2000? I’m sorry but we have to move on.
Partner: Is there any way to go back to standard control panel?
Presenter: Sounds like you have personal problems, let’s meet afterwards.
Presenter: I don’t want you to think for a second that I don’t understand…
Partners: You don’t.
(this was handled poorly every time he tried to be compassionate)
Presenter: I do from hearing all the other OEMs complain.
Presenter: What you want to do is criminal / illegal.
Presenter: It’s intellectual property…. <slew of insults to follow>
The insults were many and frequent. Presenter attempted to slant each argument presented by OEM Partners by ridiculing them with examples that were at best baseless and at worst outright irrelevant. However, where he totally lost all respect from the audience was when he absolutely misjudged his audience and justified their fears: That Microsoft is a double-standard company when dealing with small OEMs as opposed to large retailers:
Presenter: So there I was last night at Best Buy and I saw someone bring their Compaq. The Geek Squad employee just said OK and took the PC to the back and started re-imaging the system without having the original disks that came with the system.
<Audience erupts in outrage>
Presenter: I immediately spoke to the manager.
Partners: You didn’t stop them.
Partners: But you did nothing to enforce it!
Presenter: Oh, I enforced it plenty.
Partners: No you didn’t.
Partners: Where is the press coverage?
Partners: Did you close their doors?
Partners: Did you file a lawsuit and shut them down?
The response was less than respectful to say the least. This is the biggest problem for the OEMs out there, the feeling that Microsoft is unfairly rewarding big retailers and big box makers and eliminating the SMB OEM from existence by charging them less for OEM XP, showing preferential treatment, not enforcing licensing issues and more.
The Future Problem of Vista Upgrades
One problem presented by the OEM partners was something that I never even considered. Currently SMB OEMs serve a small niche of custom high end or media center PC’s. The pricing advantage OEMs once had has been virtually eliminated by Dell. For the longest time the biggest partner complaint regarding XP has been the “double licensing payment” involved in licensing Windows XP Professional. If a small business purchased a Windows XP Home system from Dell for $399 and then got the server they would have to pay for licensing again to upgrade to Windows XP Professional. There was no “upgrade” discount and in eyes of many this appeared to be paying for the OS twice.
Microsoft addressed this problem by shipping all the bits on the DVD that comes with Microsoft’s upcoming Vista OS. Customers can, at will, upgrade to a more functional version of Vista by simply purchasing an upgrade key from Microsoft’s web site.
OEM Partners clearly saw this as a threat of their turf of higher end business machines where they can still command some pricing advantage against big box makers and retailers.
Backstage Pass Fiasco
The Backstage Pass was a disappointment for nearly everyone I spoke to. It amounted to nothing more than a page out of Technical Demonstration Toolkit that comes with the Action Pack. According to Ian Kroe:
Icing on the cake…I stayed for the backstage after show’s hands-on-labs but wait…there’s more, as it turns out Microsoft duped the crowd’s cranial voids into thinking they were getting something fresh. Instead, they got a typed 10 page step by step pamphlet labeled “Lab Manual” that corresponds to the action pack’s TDT’s. They sit you down to an Intel Whitebook and say “go to it kid!” All it does is walk you through some Vista and Office ’07 basics. Strictly end user stuff.
I asked Microsoft out right, “isn’t this same TDT by verbatim that’s in the action pack?” I DID NOT GET A RESPONSE…until after the show.
Then they quietly said yes!
The Big Loss
Microsoft lost big time not simply by the lack of respect it showed its partners in Orlando but more by not having much to show at all. They failed to energize their traditionally loyal partners. OEM Partners sensed that, it was likely the case for the major discontent among the partners to begin with. These partners base their business around what Microsoft does and if Microsoft is not shining their sales are down and out.
Microsoft has been showing the Vista / Office for a year now and it is still not ready. There are no expectations of when it might be ready and they may as well have run out of time.
I would argue that it doesn’t matter if the innovations Microsoft brings are significantly better for its partners and its customers. If they are not seen and perceived as such then the sales do not happen and that is the only thing that matters in the end.
The event and presenter were uncharacteristically bad for Microsoft. I would consider this event to possibly be the worst one I ever attended and I’ve seen a lot. If you have been in the unfortunate audience and have been disappointed by both the presenter and the presentation I beg you to go see a Microsoft TS2 roadshow where both the presenters and the content are more relevant, timely and designed to make you money.
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