Path of the Digital Katana

‘Dumb’ Windows 7 upgrade chart sparks spat

This looks like it will push a few more into Apple’s arms. I mean, who came up with that? Rather than prettying up the desktop and making cooler startup sounds and graphic effects, maybe some care should have been taken around the upgrade and migration process?

One item of note, the “new PC” argument. There’s a big difference there too. Apple has a migration assistant. You put your old machine on the network, plug in the new Mac, and tell it during your setup to migrate over your apps, data, users, etc. Then you head out to a movie for a few hours and let it work.

Last time I did a Windows upgrade (which was thankfully a LONG while ago) there was no such feature. There’s a few enterprise tools in the Microsoft regime, but that’s for those wacky system administrators to deal with. There’s even (as usual) a third-party tool or two to help you for an added fee.

I just don’t get why the team at Redmond continues to treat their users with utter contempt, thinking that a computer user in the 21st century is going to putter around and fiddling with things like they did in the 80s and 90s. People who use computers now are not technology enthusiasts. They are not tinkerers from the dawn of personal computing. They are not a developer or computer professional. It’s our job as developers to help them out, not create a “clean install” full-day attended experience followed by reinstalling all the software onto the computer from original installation files rather than copying them across and (maybe) re-entering the license key.

I’ll chalk it up to (another) part of the Windows Experience I don’t miss in the least. I’ve got a lot of other things to do with a day of time. Fortunately, when Snow Leopard ships this fall, the computer will do the bulk of the work and let me go do those things with my kids.

So, in the realm of value and buyer beware, it seems that eBay might have had some lawyers that didn’t remember to put their reading glasses on. This story over at tweaktown.com would imply that 2B was the value (well, 1.7B now after a write-down) of a network minus a central piece of the technology.

Sorry, but if you’re paying that much, you get a perpetual license to it at a reasonable rate adjusted for inflation or valuation or the like. You don’t put that much money on the table and have that sort of escape clause.

Now regardles of what the gents at joltid may or may not have the rights to do, swinging that sort of deal on that much cash, which being possibly legally legit, is a very crooked, fly-by-night way of doing business. Pulling such a license from eBay after taking the money on the deal would put these guys in one of the least trustworthy tiers of businessmen on the planet in my books. That is, essentially, ripping their customer (eBay in this case) off.

I really hope there’s a misunderstanding in here and that this is a rumour or hiccup in the business relationship that got heard and blown out of whack. I hope that both sides are being honourable and honest in the dealings, and fair.

But that lawyer still needs their prescription checked.