Consumers just can’t get enough of suing Microsoft. But Microsoft seems more than capable of defending itself (Vista-capable pun intended). Microsoft today said that the idea that it makes money from XP downgrades is hogwash. This was in response to a class-action lawsuit filed last week against Microsoft by a woman over a $59.25 charge for downgrading her Windows Vista PC to XP.
Today, Microsoft responded to the suit by saying that downgrade rights are part of the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA), reports ChannelWeb and Redmond doesn’t make a penny. The source of the fees seem to be resellers charging for the time and effort it takes them to perform the downgrade. Microsoft reportedly makes downgrades difficult, requiring resellers with designations other than the highest “Gold” certification to call Microsoft and validate each individual PC that is to be downgraded. Gold partners can automate the downgrade process online. According to the ChannelWeb:
“The point of the lawsuit, then, appears to be with the charges that OEMs levy for executing the XP downgrades. And according to system builders, the downgrade process is time-consuming enough to warrant a fee. Customers can perform downgrades on their own, but the process isn’t easy, and an original copy of the media with a COA (Certificate Of Authenticity) is required to get the downgrade to work, said Todd Swank, vice president of marketing at system builder Nor-Tech, Burnsville, Minn.”
Computerworld blogger Preston Gralla has taken an interesting stand defending Microsoft. He notes that if the woman disliked Vista so much, but still wanted an Intel-compatible system (whatever that means) she could have bought a Mac or a Linux system.
While we’re on the subject of defending Microsoft, it was a surprising turn of events that caused Microsoft to win its motion yesterday to end the class-action status on the never-ending Vista capable lawsuit. Given the loads of e-mail evidence that Microsoft executives were aware that only the most basic edition of Vista worked on all those so-called “Vista capable” machines, it seemed a shoo-in that Redmond was going to lose and lose big. But, as Converging on Microsoft blogger Mitchell Ashley wrote, “I must really be missing something but I have to admin I’ve never seen the merit behind the Vista Capable lawsuit against Microsoft.” Maybe he’s not alone.
Ironic or what? On the one hand, Microsoft is being sued by some users that bought machines with XP before the release of Vista because those XP machines failed to run all editions with Vista. And it is being sued by a user who bought a Vista machine because it cost money to make it run XP. The operating systems installed on the machines at the time of purchase were not the issue.
What if this standard was applied across the board? Phone makers are sued because the phone worked as a phone and didn’t offer the function of also being an MP3 player. Maybe someone would sue a refrigerator maker because the plain refrigerator door could not dispense ice.
How much is Microsoft responsible for giving us exactly the Windows operating system desired? Do resellers have the right to charge for a service included in Vista’s EULA?
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