MS loses appeal in "Vista Capable" lawsuit

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So then why didn't the end user sue the "big box store" for not knowing the product they were selling, rather than M$?

Oh wait! Watch the news! Something tells me this is going to happen soon.

 

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This is more pedantic than it needs to be -- life is full of choices, and its your decision to research it or not. As a mechanic, do you realize how many new car owners drive through the service lane and scream at you that they can't find the power window switch? Or their engine locks up because the owner never checks the oil? Or they can't find the six-CD changer, even though the option list didn't include one?

As a consumer, there *has* to be some responsibility in knowing what you're buying. I'm the only one to blame if the A/C doesn't work on the car that I just bought.... when it wasn't standard. If I'm gonna lay out several hundred or several thousand, I should have some accountability in the purchase -- including, at the very least, knowledge of the product. I'll be as vocal as the next against ethics violations regarding business practice, but I can't award ignorance. Caveat Emptor

 

You can't expect a Ford Focus to have the same features as a Ferrari. If I don't know anything about cars, I need to figure that out before I buy one.

Should I be upset that my plain-old boxy 27" TV can't display in hi-def? Should I expect that it has this capability just because other TVs do? No; I should have done my research first.

 

A better chance? Sure. But it's obvious that many don't, though they should. Just because a few Microsoft executives with low amounts of common sense don't do THEIR research doesn't automagically absolve the customers of doing THEIR research.

That's like saying I should know what the system requirements are for Boson's NetSim. I don't. Know what I'd have to do? I'd have to look it up... just like everyone else.

 

OMG, that's been my mistake!
Here I am working on technical intricacies, where I should be working to look good with a suntan. I've already got the tall and good hair part

 

I dunno BM. Seems like a stretch to me. I'm not laying the blame with MS (may be with vendor), but if a parent goes into a store to buy a computer for his 10-yr old kid, and the sticker says "Vista Capable" I'm not holding the parent responsible for the blatant marketing trick.

Yeah, you and I and probably everybody here could do research, but many people would not even know where to start.

 

If you don't know what you're buying... why are you spending that much money on something you haven't checked out? Sorry, mate... the customer has to take *some* level of responsibility.

Just saying, "We're techs, we know to do research," doesn't justify anything. Like I said, I don't know a thing about TVs or cars... but before I buy one, I do my research. I did research before I bought my house. I did research before I went to college. I did research before I bought my refrigerator! If I'm going to spend THAT much money on something, I'm going to ensure I know the capabilities of what I'm buying.

 

The only problem with that, BM, is that most people don't know how to do the research. They wouldn't even have a clue to Google something like this, so how in the world are they supposed to find the information?

You're extrapolating out from your own skill set and saying everyone else in the world has the same skill set. That's a major logical fallacy. What IQ do you have? What technology IQ do you have? What are those IQ levels compared to the average joe down the street? Where are you at in the Bell Curve IQ-wise? 95th percentile or above is my guess. And you're claiming that Mr. Average Joe with an IQ 30 or more points lower than yours should be held morally responsible for not being born with the same abilities you have? That's just plain old foolish and very ridiculous. I find it a disingenuous argument at best.

Your point of view also puts all the blame on the consumer. In your world MS should go scot-free for deliberately confusing people. Deliberate deceit is pure dishonesty, any way you look it. They need to be held accountable for it.

 

Oh please, 5 years ago, 'googling' something was an art .. nowadays, its commonplace. Granted, with all of the crap on the 'net, its actually more of an art -- sorting the wheat from the chaff. Still, what did people do before the net? How about magazines? Although anything ZDNet is generally a shill for anything big-box, rags like PC Mag were full of Vista articles, warning buyers on the levels of Vista. It has absolutely nothing to do with IQ.

If anything, litigation in this country is driving the economy more than Microsoft. Operating Systems, last I checked, are not commodity, and subject to regulation. It's amazing that some people hold certain standards to Microsoft that really don't have a clue about business, much less their business, and don't consider the majority that are fine with Vista. Just because a consumer pays for service, doesn't give them the right to dictate their terms. It certainly behooves the company to listen to their majority, but not the minority (especially the part that puts NO money in their pocket anyway).

If you want to spend a boatload of money on something that you have no clue about...go ahead. Blaming MS for the ethically weak practice of some builders to falsely advertise machines incapable of operation is like blaming Ford wholly for the Firestone tire debacle.

 

They don't have to know how to Google it. All they need to do is ask someone who *is* knowledgeable. If I'm having car problems, I'm not gonna Google it... I'm gonna ask an expert. When I'm buying a TV, I might Google the definitions so I'm not a complete noob with the terminology... but I'm probably gonna ask someone who knows more about TVs than I do. When I have a problem with my eyes, I go to my eye doctor... and when she has problems with her computer, she comes to me.

I don't assume that everyone is like me. I do assume that most everyone can figure out when they don't know something well enough.

I shouldn't have to hold someone's hand because they aren't intelligent. Neither should I take advantage of them. These are the two sides of the fence on which we sit: I don't think Microsoft needs to do more than what they've done, and you think that Microsoft is blatantly trying to screw the customers that don't do (or know how to do) their research.

And your point of view puts all of the blame on the manufacturer. How is one more fair than another?

Again, we're on two sides of the fence. You feel that Microsoft deliberately screwed their customers (though, I'm not sure why they'd want to make customers mad, "sweetheart deal" or not), and I feel that Microsoft gave adequate warning.

What more should Microsoft have done? Place a Microsoft representative at every computer outlet, and screen online customers' orders before they're placed? You can only protect people from their own ignorance to a certain point... and then it becomes counterproductive to do so.

 

I am in agreement with BM here. Microsoft develop an operating system with a number of different versions. The versions of Vista all have slightly different features. They list minimum hardware specifications to run the entry level and full featured versions of Vista. Hardware manufacturers build computers that meet or exceed these minimum standards, stick the appropriate sticker on the box and the things go off to the shops. Where is the problem here?

The average consumer has to choose which make and model to buy with pretty much any purchase. Cars have a number of different spec levels in the same range, TVs have lots of confusing terminology, I don’t see consumers dragging Sony into court because they bought a new HD Bravia LCD without reading the specification and it can’t display the best HD resolution 1080p. Sony don’t have to hold the customers hand and check they are buying the right thing, why should Microsoft? Manufacturers build stuff, write the specification on the outside of the box and line them up in the shop so the consumer can choose the one they want.

What if there was no choice, what if Vista came in only one edition, what if it had a grey box and a black and white GUI and all boring applications were included. Consumer choice powers the economy, people have the right to chose where and what to spend their money on, so why are they so upset, they had a choice when buying their computer the same as they do when buying a car or a TV. If the consumer doesn’t know about the thing they are buying, its up to them to find out and make an informed purchase. There are many ways they can do this, Google, ask an expert, ask a friend, ask the guy in PC World, look in a magazine, post on a message board, do an evening class in first time computing. I bought a DVD player a few years back and didn’t check to see if it had an optical output, so whose fault is that, I may just look into suing the ass of JVC, they obviously didn’t explain everything well enough....

 

I think that the minimum hardware requirements for an OS has always caught the uninformed out. So, nothing new there. The difference here is the wording being used. Vista Ready, Vista Capable, to the uninformed means the same thing The wording does not imply that people should research more into this before they make a decision, it implies that experts have deemed that the hardware is ready for Vista.

It is the wording that is dubious and that is why Microsoft are having a hard time defending it.

And i agree with Freddy that it is a deceiptful practise, like many other sales techniques. Though i can see both sides of the argument here. My vote would be against the choice of wording and the promotional tactics used.

 

But......wait a minute....isn't that what you're doing with the 1 (repeat 1) MS executive? From what you're saying freddy is that just because he works for MS he is automatically a super executive and is better informed than the public.

That's because freddy also has a not so hidden agenda against MS. I don't see any posts about how IBM are shafting their customers with products that fail to live up to the promises of IBM.

This is a fair point. If I go into a shop to buy something I expect the salesperson to know what they are selling and if they don't know then they really have no right to give me advice.

It's probably a part of the trend I see that salespeople are getting dumbed down more and more as the information on the internet increases. I've also seen this first-hand. Some time ago I went into a shop to buy a router with a printserver. I found something that seemed to be the right one but I still had 1 question about it. I found the sales guy and asked him, he took the box and read the back and said it seemed that it was as I asked. I put it back on the shelf and walked away shaking my head. I can also read the box.

 

This is really starting to get out of hand now. Freddy...as always you love to attack M$ for everything they do. My question is: what was so bad that they did to you that made you become the world's number 1 hater for M$?

Anyway that aside, as pretty much others have said, when going to buy something, if one is going to spend heavily on a product, one must do what research they can on that product.

For example, at work my manager is thinking of getting a new LCD HDTV. He is still doing his research and has been for the last 2 weeks...he has looked online, walked into a shop, asked someone who knows about HDTV. But he is still not happy with what he has found and is still going to look and look until he finds the right TV for him.

Now take a look at a friend of mine. He is the one person I know who always buys things on impulse...he never does research on anything he buys and I will demonstrate. He went out and bought a PS3, but he forgot that his TV and two LCD monitors did not have HD capability. now seeing as the two monitors (both 22" by the way) only had VGA ports (who still buys monitors with just one port?), he thought he could get a VGA to HDMI convertor (or was it VGA to DVI?) Anyway, basically he bought the wrong thing, not only did he buy the wrong thing, the one he wanted was not available at all. So he couldnt play his games in HD on his tv or his monitors. So what did he do? He went and bought a 19" LCD TV.

Now had he done his research, he wouldnt have had the issues he was faced with. So I ask you, who is at fault here: Sony or my friend for not knowing what he needed in order to watch Blu-Ray DVDs and play games in pure HD?

I have always told him to do his research before going to buy something but he never listens. i do my research before buying something. He was due to buy an AMD 6000+ X2 CPU, yet the PC shop he went to told him about the new AMD 6400+ X2 (yes they saw him coming from a mile away!). The next day he went and bought it paying more than £160 for it. About a week later I saw the exact same CPU on ebuyer for £130. He should have waited. I know I would have done. It's no wonder he would ring me almost every week and say there was something wrong with his PC and when I would tell him what it is from what he explained to me, again he dont listen and decides to re-format his PC and I have seriously lost count with how many times he has done that.

but there is the difference between me and him. We both build and fix computers but unlike him I do my research on things before I go out and buy them and sometimes what I said I would get, I dont end up getting it.

So again Freddy, why attack M$ when pretty much this problem happens with other companies but u dont hear about them getting sued? Please can the attack on M$ just stop cos it really is getting tedious now and I am getting sick of it.

 

why didnt they just make 1 version and up the hardware requirements a little

so what if some lower spec pcs wont run all the features, technology changes rapidly and its important to keep up to date......


maybe they wouldnt have made as much profit that way but if they get sued for wotever it is then they could end up worse off

 

Thats highly unlikely. Given the money that MS rakes in from its Windows line, it would have to be a very, VERY big settlement before they would actually lose money from the entire vista venture.

And they were trying to do it to provide a more tailored service. With only one or two products, you are limited in choice, with multiple products, at varying levels, you pick the level best suited to your needs and only pay for that.