Damn software companies!
by Scott Annan on June 27th, 2008I am always amazed at how lousy software companies are.
Yesterday I read two different blogs that highlighted the two biggest problems with software companies: product quality and customer service.
The first was an irate internal email Bill Gates sent in 2003 about his experience trying to install Movie Maker. You can read the whole email here, but here is a highlight after 15 minutes of trying to install the software, installing Window’s patches, and having to reboot:
So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.
It is not there.
What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.
But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.
What an absolute mess.
It turns out EVERYONE gets frustrated by Microsoft Windows.
The second blog was sent to me by Jevon MacDonald of StartupNorth.ca - an article written on the D-Tools blog where the author describes the customer hell his company went through trying to work with NetSuite CRM. After several years as a customer, and after negotiating a $125,000 price for 26 users (!), he decided to finally leave NetSuite:
The reason we left NetSuite was their business practices. I do not think I can explain it any clearer than here. We had a dispute over what contingent means and as a negotiating tactic they threaten to cancel our paid in full account that was not set to expire for five months. That is like negotiating with the mafia while they have your head in vise. Who wants to do business with a company like that? I was actively securing financing for this deal with our bank when we got the first collection letter nine days after the estimate.
Here is someone who is leaving the company - not because of the product capabilities, but as a result of how he was treated.
I wonder if the NetSuite executives are aware of this specific case - or the many other situations like it. I wonder if they sent irate internal email to their sales and account management teams.
I bet they did.
But what really blows my mind is that executives know this is happening and they condone it by not stopping it. Bill’s email was from 2003, and just yesterday I was told by a service technician “Whatever you do, don’t install MS Service Pack 3!” (luckily I am on a mac). NetSuite consistently treats their customers poorly, if you believe what several people report on the many websites dedicated to their business practice (including netsuiteconsumerfraud.com where they’re trying to launch a class-action law suit).
Software companies have to stop handcuffing their customers with faulty products and lousy customer engagement. It’s disgraceful.
Tags: Bill Gates, microsoft, netsuite, software
June 27th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Hi, I was the person who wrote the post on NetSuite and D-Tools. The NetSuite CEO, Zach Nelson was aware of this specific issue from the start. Speaking of handcufs read this http://www.d-toolsblog.com/?p=213 about the NetSuite “data export/backup” UI.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Scott,
It looks like the point of your post it to highlight some of the things you want your company to avoid - in terms of product quality and customer service. I think that clearly you want to offer a product with great product quality, you want to offer tools that reduce start-up and/or switching costs for potential customers, you want to offer customer service that reinforces your product quality (or addresses its inevitable shortcomings), and for those customers who are no longer persuaded by your product/service value proposition, you want to give them a relatively graceful way to exit.
Adam seems to feel that NetSuite did not give him a graceful way to exit. We are a current NetSuite customer (3 years), so although I don’t have direct experience with exiting (I am a customer who is extremely happy with both product quality and customer service), I have been through the renewals process, and did not have anything resembling the experience cited. I certainly didn’t feel handcuffed or held hostage to NetSuite as is described. Had we decided to leave NetSuite, we would have been able to. Clearly, NetSuite wouldn’t have bent over backwards to grease the skids for an exit, and it would have cost us time and money - but not unreasonably so, and it could have been done. Indeed, I know enough fellow NetSuite customers to say with certainty that Adam’s story and the other website you cite are not symptomatic of a general trend going on at NetSuite or among NetSuite customers.
-Brian