Vista case study a little too muddy
A journalist in Microsoft’s home town has uncovered some embarrassing truths about a recent case study it used to promote Vista for small businesses.
If you’ve paid any attention to the technosphere recently, you’ve likely seen Ana Judeh, the owner of Modern Mia Spa & Salon in Washington. She’s been featured in a case study on Microsoft’s website, is pictured in a full-page newspaper ad which ran in titles including the Wall Street Journal, and is on the front page of the firm’s site promoting its free support offer for businesses which upgrade to Vista.
In the case study, she’s quoted explaining how she uses a salon management system, Millennium, produced by Harms Software. She then used a firm named Moose Software to upgrade her three PCs to Vista, networked on Small Business Server 2003. Microsoft makes a particular point of writing that both tech firms are certified Microsoft partners.
Reading the case study, it seems all went swimmingly: “’Using Windows Vista Business has been a really good experience for us,’ says Judeh. ‘The upgrade went smoothly. All of our applications are more organized on the desktop. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Our whole system runs faster and our staff is more efficient.’”
Unfortunately for Microsoft, writer Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer gave Judeh a call to get further background for his weekly column. She revealed that the upgrade didn’t go all that smoothly.
"We worked through the issues with [Harms Software]. We spent hours and hours and hours trying to make their software work with Vista." Eventually the software worked "until they came up with a new version. Then we had to revisit it again."
As Bishop stresses, much of Judeh’s experience with Vista has been positive. But it’s baffling why a company with the PR resources of Microsoft would pick a case study candidate who had exactly the type of problem you are trying to downplay.
Baffling, that is, until you realize many Microsoft employees in Seattle are among the salon’s customers.
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July 11th, 2008
There are three kinds of liars: liars, d**ned liars, and Microsoft.
July 11th, 2008
John, To quote~
“We worked through the issues with [Harms Software]. We spent hours and hours and hours trying to make their software work with Vista.” Eventually the software worked “until they came up with a new version. Then we had to revisit it again.”
As a computer user, I personally find this statement quite in order, considering that: We don’t know what O/S system was used previously before trying to make this program work on Vista. Sounds to me like a custom job per customer’s requirements~! One in a million?
I think she’s fortunate to have been able to keep the same in-house program~! You can try John, but I doubt you can convince her to give it up..
You certainly didn’t prove anything worthwhile to me.
Hang tight, Window 7 will be out soon and, you can fire another shot.
July 12th, 2008
Well, I just took a look at the Harms Software website for their Millennium product and they make no mention of support for Windows Vista in their system requirements, XP Pro seems to be the latest MS OS that they support:
http://www.harms-software.com/software/platinum.asp
So, imho it was probably a bad move to have made the move to Vista at this stage in the game and I’m surprised that the experts employed in this exercise didn’t advise Ms Judeh so (or am I?) or at least that the Hams product was, as yet, unproven running on Vista.
All I can think is that Ms Judeh had been carried along by the Vista hype exuding from her Microsoft clientele.
I wonder who wrote her initial reaction to the joys of running with Windows Vista? It sounded like a quote from a Vista sales pitch.
Maybe a follow story up to the follow story up would be of interest…..
July 12th, 2008
In my previous post “follow story up” should, of course, read “follow up story”
July 13th, 2008
Xepharian,
I agree..Maybe a follow-up-story..:), to a follow-up-story is in order.
One gets the impressions that Harms was able to ??rewrite?? the program in order to work with Vista.
One can only guess what then happened when they came up with a new version. Did they try to download a new version or revision that reflected on the XP version or, Vista??
Let’s have a follow up`
July 28th, 2008
Don’t you have anything else to talk about….really though? What did you get out of writing this story? Everyone’s had problems with Vista that’s why they have case studies you idiot! How can you get on this lady for telling the truth?!
Would you prefer she lied and said that it has gone perfect and nothing has ever gone wrong… Get A Life and stop writing about pointless subjects.