Does Microsoft Ignore its Obligations?

I purchased Microsoft Money for Small Business (MMSB) 2006 in August 2005.

Before I made the purchase I checked with my bank to make sure they supported the integration on MMSB. They did.

The software worked until December 2005 when Microsoft product support decided to remove support for my bank from its software.

After nearly a month of calls and emails I was told that Microsoft no longer supported my bank. The technical support person I talked to told me he was delivering the news and suggested that I buy MMSB 2005. My bank was supported there.

Now why would I buy a second (older) piece of software to do what my existing software did (or was supposed to)?

When I asked that question, the technical support person said he was telling me what my options were. When I suggested this was an absolutely absurd (I used stronger words) way to treat a customer he said he was only telling what my choices were.

When I asked to speak to someone from product support for Money I was told “product support does not talk to customers.” How could Microsoft create customer centric products if they do not talk to customers? My guess is that I am not worthy of their time because I am not a company that buys thousands of units a year.

When I asked him if he would send Money product support an email he said he could but they “wouldn’t do anything.” My other choice was to get a refund. All I needed was the product code from the box. I thought this was funny because Microsoft already had this code because I sent it to them as part of the registration/refund process.

When I told him this all he said was that I should call the rebate center.

I called the refund center and they only provide refunds on products less than 45 days old and the owner must provide the product code. After much discussion they agreed to consider a refund as a one time exception if I send the MMSB 2006 disk, the support tracking number, and a bunch of other information (by certified priority mail.)

What really makes me mad is that I own Microsoft Products: office systems 2003, XP, Visio, etc. and all I wanted was to use a piece of software I purchased. This software worked for 6 months.

What is a small business owner to do? I asked Al Plastow (http://www.biztechnet.org) who is an expert in software licensing. Here is what he had to say:

As a whole, the software industry is relatively good at monitoring customer problems. However, the small business customer is very frequently a victim of generic shrink wrap licenses. These licenses – as is your for MSM2006 – are the least beneficial agreements we can make. My first advice: Never buy shrink wrap style products.

Second: As I mention in my book, “Modern Pirates”, always carefully read every single license and be certain you agree with the terms and conditions prior to submitting payment or registering the product (As you noted, MS gave you 45 days). Return the product if the license is not favorable to your needs. Of interest for you, if the software publisher decided to audit you for compliance, you could easily be considered a software pirate simply because you were not capable of producing the product documentation printed on the shrink wrap box (that you sent to Microsoft).

Third: Never lock yourself in to a product until you have carefully reviewed both the track record of that product and the alternative products in that service space. The track record includes the real world experiences of other users (not the propaganda of the vendor). Ensure that the product you select is capable of performing the service you require and that the vendor is not going to drop support—this happens all too frequently.

Finally: I make it a practice of never acquiring products from certain software publishers until those products have been fully operational “in the wild” for at least a full year. This gives the vendor plenty of time to patch at least a majority of the major defects in the product that were not evident on the initial release.

If I can provide any other answers to questions or needs, let me know. The Business Technology Consumer Network (biztechnet.org) exists to help businesses—large or small—in gaining optimal value for technology investments.

If you have any experiences you want to share please post a comment. Maybe your experience will help others avoid software problems.