[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] Communicating the facts - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA
Tue, Dec 20 2011 21:35 bradley

Communicating the facts

It just floors me how a corporation that builds so many communication platforms can screw up communication so badly.

Case in point -- the security forum helpers are convinced that Microsoft will no longer give free support for security issues --

Loss of free MS Support for MSE - almost all malware-removal and - Microsoft Answers:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/feedback/forum/mods/loss-of-free-ms-support-for-mse-almost-all-malware/59b0b380-b4f8-4a2c-a5a1-2d3004097157

Case in point the smaller partners are convinced that it's a sign that Microsoft is wanting to replace them

Partners Ponder Microsoft's Plans For Answer Desk:
http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/232300702/partners-ponder-microsofts-plans-for-answer-desk.htm;jsessionid=n-82NKW0cHIq2alpdjPNwA**.ecappj01

For once Microsoft, can't the people you pay the big bucks for in the PR department do their job and instead of "quietly" releasing this and causing all of this speculation and churn, why can't you communicate what's going on?

Meanwhile all of that "Microsoft declined to comment" just adds to the speculation and questioning.

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# re: Communicating the facts

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 2:36 PM by MowGreen

The "Clueless Empire"  is now being led by little Stevie Sinofsky who does not care for free support and detests the MVP Program.

His arrogance for those who volunteer their time for FREE is quite apparent. He only respects those who charge for their time.

If  by some chance you should ever read this Stevie, send me 2 BILLION dollars and I'll fly to Seattle to insult you in person.

That's 6 BILLION less than you paid for Skype and, unlike Skype, I am worth it. <w>

# re: Communicating the facts

Thursday, December 22, 2011 3:57 AM by Kosh Vorlon

Since I'm the one who started the thread referenced above in Answers - and BTW, I'm not only convinced it's true but I've proven it by pretending to be a customer and finding out what happened and asking the people who finally answered the call what was going on (and others since then have also proven much of this to be the case - though it's not entirely as bad as originally imagined).  I even included transcripts of those conversations.

Free malware-removal support is gone for the the USA.  I wonder how long before it spreads to the rest of the world (seems like just step one in a global intent).  Fortunately, product support for MSE remains free as long as it's not shown to be related to infections - then it becomes a malware problem and that costs to be fixed before they'll get back to the free MSE product support part.  At least for now.  But if they did this, what's on the agenda that we don't know about?  If kept in the dark about something as crucial to us as this, then we can't count on hearing about anything.

And we are the community forum group that provides front-line support for MSE problems and questions - yet we need to find out from the customers to whom we're providing inaccurate information weeks after implementation (and of course tell them they're wrong because it's been free for years and nobody informed us of any changes) until we get enough complaints to pretend to be customers with problems ourselves to figure out what's happening and that's how we're told.  Even now, we haven't been officially notified.  Oh and does anyone respond to explain things or help us with the problems caused - not only is the answer no (as of now), but they concurrently implement another new policy to eliminate the powers of Community Moderators to edit threads (and you should read how that was spun into something positive) so we get no explanation, no help, and changes to make helping ourselves even more difficult.

# re: Communicating the facts

Thursday, December 22, 2011 9:04 AM by bradley

All you proved was that the people in the Answer desk don't know what's going on either.  I'm not ready to state definitively that it's gone.  Let's wait to hear back from other sources.