Microsoft Problems: Coming Soon

And not just in Florida where we await yet another hurricane. It has been somewhat slow over the past few days at least in comparison to the frenzy surrounding the launch of Exchange 2003 SP2. I must say, things are going pretty well and I’m happy with everything, but here are a few problems that I see with my biggest partner that may snowball if they are not addressed soon.

Exchange SP2 Followup
Problems are starting to surface from people that waited to deploy it over the weekend, and most are related to SQL and XML issues that may have been present previously. Thankfully these issues are recognized during setup before serious problems can hit your Exchange infrastructure. I think one of the fundamental problems, and disappointments, with the launch of Exchange 2003 SP2 has been the lack of documentation. While I can appreciate the more urgency Microsoft is taking to bring their next generation of servers online, but if that rush is at the cost of poorly documenting the new technology I for one don’t look forward to it happening. You can’t close the source, not release documentation, and ignore questions. You can’t expect to feel it is good enough to burn CTP’s and expect your customers to be your beta testers and buy, lets face it, poorly written books that come out too late.

OpenOffice 2.0
Now from the other side of software theology comes the Open Office 2.0, the long awaited update that promises huge performance increases. I’ve written about this before and I will do so again – you do not need more than what OpenOffice has to offer. I know the new Excel spreadsheets look great, I know the next Word will be so much easier to use but I’m in interoffice business documents all day long and they rarely, if ever, use more advanced features. One of the things Greg Boyd always stressed in his presentations has been the fact that people do not use features that are more than two clicks away. And yes, the new Office bars look pretty and dynamic, but its hard teaching and old (and overworked) non-technical office dog new tricks and there is little that separates Microsoft Office from OpenOffice for those people. Not everyone is a techie, not everyone is going to experience the “remarkable productivity gains for information workers” if they do not dig for those advanced features to begin with.

The Official SBS Support Blog #5
The new episode is on the web and this is yet another shining example of Microsoft employees that understand their customers. Now, these guys work in the support channel and they help customers that call and pay for help. They also have a public blog that rapidly responds to the most frequent new issues that come up. Peter Gallagher even has a blog on which he posts the support call of the day. These guys do awesome work, share it with everyone willing to read, take calls, take questions on the blog, participate in the public mailing lists to answer questions. And all is good, right?

Nope. Why are these people so hard to find? Why is the SBS Support Podcast only being marketed by Susan Bradley and Vlad Mazek? Why is it that the almighty Microsoft.com search does not show a trace of the Official SBS Support blog? Its been up there for five weeks, you’d figure it would be indexed somewhere by now but no.

Is it really a problem?
Depends on how you read it. Look at stories #1 and #3, then look at story number two. If Microsoft’s priority is on releasing undocumented software while pushing aside the very people that support and explain their platform, then what is my incentive to ignore their competitors? The only way this makes sense is if the next generation of Microsoft’s products sets up on its own and never experiences problems, in which case documentation and support will be irrelevant. I will start taking bets on this now 🙂

Update: I just got an email from Carlos asking whats bothering me today and what Microsoft has done today to piss me off. Nothing is bothering me and the real motive behind Exchange and SBS Support Podcast comments is really a bright, shining spotlight on how Microsoft priorities seem to be in the wrong place:
– SBS Support podcast nowhere to be found at Microsoft.com
– Exchange SP2 documentation limited to release notes and three blog posts.
– 52,000 (as of Sunday, 4AM) people have looked at my Exchange SP2 guides. Nearly double the regular volume.