back to article Microsoft badmouths Google competition - again

The days of Microsoft being able to ignore the competition or overstep “dirty words” are long gone, as evidenced by a corporate Office 2010 blog post written by the company’s customer service and support veep yesterday. Perhaps Barbara Gordon has heeded the cry from her workmate Frank X Shaw, who late last week urged Microsoft …

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  1. petur
    FAIL

    Microsoft *needs* CS

    How many times have I lost an MS Office document? 10+, I gave up counting.

    How many times have I lost a Google document. None yet.

    Maybe MS should put time in fixing their products....

  2. rogue lj
    FAIL

    Erm.. Wrong question.

    "When was the last time you called Google for help recovering a lost Google Doc?"

    Shouldn't that be :

    "When was the last time you lost a Google Doc?"

    1. rhdunn

      spin

      And therein lies the spin. It's all about marketing.

      "When was the last time you called Google for help recovering a lost Google Doc?" implies that (a) losing Google Docs is a common occurrence and that (b) Google don't provide easy access to help to recover the file(s) -- something that Microsoft is promoting.

      "When was the last time you lost a Google Doc?" implies that you rarely need to contact Google for help, so it is not much of an issue. Microsoft can't do anything in response to that question as it makes Google look better.

    2. Atonnis
      FAIL

      Well...

      What do you expect? Google aren't going to lose a single document, not with the amount of times all of your stuff has been scanned and indexed...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Just like

      "When did you stop beating your wife?"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I blame immigrants

    Also, what does this mean for house prices, Maddie Mccann and/or Princess Diana??

  4. JimC
    WTF?

    When was the last time I called Microsoft for help recovering an Office document?

    It would, after all, be a similary pointless exercise as anyone who's had to deal with their support services will surely tell you...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Eh? Wha?

    Microsoft are claiming that it's really, really easy and painless to get support from them?

    Which planet?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    support for a lost google document?

    Windows users lose a lot of google documents then do they? Even a browser crash wouldn't result in a lost file as it's stored on google's servers.

    I can only assume that the people she's referring to purposely delete their documents then contact support to find out where they are.

  7. Rob 101
    WTF?

    No support from microsoft.

    I've been chasing an issue of well over a year with them.

    After 6 months of being bonced between various "customer care" departments, re-explaining my issue after it was not read properly and stock responses sent I was informed that I had not actually yet spoken to to a support assistant, just 1st line "care" assistants.

    Eventually I started getting somewhere then it went dead. Now I send a reminder that they have not responsed about once a month and every couple of months get a note back saying they still care and will get back to me later in the day.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Chrome Native Client Running OpenOffice

    ..will make Ballmer & Co sweat. That will be big fun to see.

    Written on a Chrome browser.

  9. YumDogfood

    Last days of Empire

    You always seem to get the crazies coming out of the woodwork, just before the game changes. MS is either going to be renewed and invigorated, reinvented... or continuing its long journey into becoming just another bland corporation; spouting BS and shipping the software equivalent of Toilet Duck.

  10. Daniel 1
    Joke

    Microsoft's 'dialog' with their customers?

    Dialog... Dialog... Isn't that that gray modal thing, that pops up, every so often, with "OK" written on it (even when its really not okay)?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    How funny it is...

    to see a giant like M$ completely lose it, acting like a scared little kid... amazing times! Microsoft, try and keep it together for a little more longer when the real problem comes, when developers abandon .Net and SQL!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Word 2003 file size

    I had an issue with a Word doc doubling in size every time the save button was hit.

    I emailed with the Doc attached to a friend at Microsoft.

    A week later I got the Doc back with a message saying our support team have not been able to reproduce the problem.

    The file was now 16 times bigger than originally sent.

  13. Baudwalk

    When was the last time you got any useful support from Microsoft?

    About 12 years ago, IIRC. They told me to phone IBM instead. Turns out that was pretty good advice.

    Not that Google Docs ought to worry the MS Officers that much. Open Office should be a bigger threat, IMHO.

  14. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Wow.

    Just...wow.

    Microsoft have lost the plot. first: you don't loose a Google Doc. Google's got that thing so backed up it's ridiculous. Second: Google doesn't do phones. (Though I do consider that a huge failing on Google's part, one for which they should be spanked.) Google does however offer many forms of online help that Microsoft are patently unable to offer.

    Microsoft would love to sell you something to solve your problem, even if what they are selling isn't related to your problem. Helping you actually solve it hasn't been something Microsoft has done for ten years. Microsoft’s customer support is /marginally acceptable/ if you are a big enough company with a good enough support contract. If you are a regular consumer or SMB who buys their software outside of SA agreements, fugeddaboutit.

    You can’t “spin” Microsoft’s arrogantly anti-customer approach over the last ten years as somehow not sucking. As much as I fear Google’s privacy-obliterating tendencies, and would never want anything to do with the control freak in charge of Apple, Microsoft is not someone I can look at as a warm, fuzzy bear. They are perhaps marginally less horrific overall than either Google or Apple, depending on what you vale.

    They do however completely suck at “interfacing” with their customers, something both Apple and Google excel at. (Though in different ways, obviously.)

    This is now the third article in as many days demonstrating vividly how out of touch Microsoft is. It’s sad that a software company with so much promise is flushing everything down the drain on pride and the “vision” of their old-guard.

    MS need some new blood who are capable of making them a company people actually WANT to use rather than a company they feel FORCED to use. Sadly the people in charge can’t understand that “current market share” has little bearing on “customer satisfaction.” Their footprint is eroding because people are abandoning them just as quick as they are able. Lock-ins and a monopolistic legacy have given them a standing list of customers, but unless they clean up their act it will dwindle away to nothing.

    Remember that Steam for Macs has suddenly made Apple an actual viable platform for home use. If either Apple or Google (or Oracle?) start getting their act together and offering a realistic server platform (buy Red Hat or Novell?) then Microsoft is in some deep poop. The vision of those companies is murdering Microsoft as is. If they combine competitive technologies including a killer client platform (OSX or ChromeOS), a killer consumer platform (iOS or Android) with a server stack then Microsoft is done.

    Adapt or die.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Customer service from Microsoft?!

    The only thing that Microsoft will service is your wallet. "You want an office suite with that? Bend over and grab your ankles."

  16. jco
    Boffin

    Stolen gmail account

    I had my gmail account stolen by someone with my same first and last name. It took a couple of days to get it back (after a few online forms filling).

    When I've been able to login again, I discovered every mail was deleted, so I tried to contact Google about that by email, forms, etc.

    I've yet to hear from them. I've never lost a Google doc, but I'm sure if it would happen, they couldn't care less.

    It would be interesting to compare Google and Microsoft support over payed services, since it seems to me the Microsoft post seems to compare Office support, which costs a fortune, with the free Google docs...

    JMTC, jco

  17. Sean

    When was the last time...

    When was the last time you called Microsoft for Support with a consumer product and didn't finish the phone call feeling like you'd been bent over without even the common courtesy of a reach around?

    Yeesh.

    About 90% of my total career earnings have revolved around my ability to work with Microsoft products - I like those products for the most part - but Microsoft's end user support process isn't something I'd use to sell those products on. In fact when selling Microsoft products - probably the most effective selling tool I've ever found was the promise to provide support to go with the purchased product, so the buyer didn't ever have to deal with Microsoft.

    Microsoft support when there's a corporate support agreement in place, for business solutions isn't awful. It's nothing to write home about, but it's not awful. But try calling Microsoft about your single retail/student licensed copy of Office where due to a flaw in the microsoft product - you've lost data, and you'll almost certainly gain a clearer understanding of what it's like to get a cavity check on the way through customs. You might understand and agree with the reasons why it is like it is, but only a particularly perverse individual will come away with a smile.

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