How Not to Get Your Product Reviewed

By Ctein

Every so often Mike and I like to talk about the "supply side" of the photography writers' business. This one's about the strangest reviewer experience I've ever had, without a doubt. So sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

Back in the early "noughts" I wrote an article for Photo Techniques magazine on working cross-platform. Back then, Virtual PC was the state-of-the-art emulator. I was long overdue to revisit the topic, so we scheduled a new article, wherein I would compare various and sundry virtualization engines (VMware Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox and the like) running photographically useful applications. I acquired several virgin copies of Windows Vista Ultimate and talked to the public relations people for VMware at Mac Expo last year. They gave me a copy of Fusion on the spot.

Fusion installed with no trouble on my MacBook Pro, and Windows Vista went into that with nary a complaint. I had a nice clean install on a system with plenty of hardware resources, and the performance gauges looked nominal. That's when things started going sour.

I know emulation's pitfalls, and don't have unduly high performance expectations. But my installation was unusable. It was so slow and balky that I couldn't even drag a window without getting stuttering and ghosting, with long pauses between responses to my input that made apps entirely unworkable. Obviously something was badly wrong. I knew people out there who are using this combination for productive work. No way they could have been seeing the non-performance I was.

I decided to try another approach and migrate my less demanding, everyday Windows 2000 PC system over to Fusion. I installed the migration tool on my PC, launched it, and one minute later got the blue screen of death. I tried reconfiguring it every which way. Either it didn't run at all, or it went to BSOD.

Okay, I'm a reviewer; I'm good at breaking things. I posted some messages in the users' forums to see if they could be of any help; they weren't. So I logged onto the VMware website to register my software to get the complimentary tech support. Reviewers typically get tech support at a higher level than ordinary consumers, but I always like to try going through end-user channels to see what that's like. But the website wouldn't accept my software's serial number!

Finally I figured out how to contact customer support without a "valid" serial number, which was much trickier than it should be. That's when it went from sour to completely surreal.

Customer support informed me that my serial number won't register because it was a "giveaway" product and they don't provide complimentary support on giveaway products. I carefully and politely explained that I'm a reviewer. As I wrote to VMware support in my final e-mail, "Honestly, do you really want reviewers writing things like, 'I tried Feature X. It didn't work for me,' without them ever getting a hold of a support person to find out if there is a fix for their problem or if there's something they don't understand? I kind of doubt that."

It was like talking to a brick wall. All they'd tell me is that I'm not entitled to any technical support. I understand companies who don't want to provide me with a product because I'm not a major reviewer. Never before have I encountered a company that was enthusiastic about me reviewing their product but wasn't the least bit interested in making sure I was using it properly. Usually they're all over you for not talking to them about a problem before publishing (which is a whole 'nother ethical issue Mike and I have discussed at some length).

I wrote the PR agency describing this bizarre situation and asked if they could do anything about it. Still no support.

A month or so later, I was at a party with a bunch of my hacker friends, and I mentioned this bizarre incident within earshot of a friend who's a senior engineer at VMware. He took it upon himself to kick an internal e-mail upstairs on the matter. Still nothing from VMware.

Meanwhile, Photo Technique magazine was undergoing major revisions, de-emphasizing product reviews and so making this particular project low priority. I decided to give it one more go, though, this year at Mac Expo. At the VMware booth I found that there's been substantial turnover in their support and public relations teams. The people I talked to were appropriately appalled at hearing what happened. They promised to get me a copy of the latest version of the software, with a support license, as soon as the dust settled after the show.

That was more than two months ago. I've heard nothing. If I really cared, I'd follow up; I understand stuff can fall through the cracks at a trade show. But, this is my fourth unsuccessful attempt to penetrate VMware's iron curtain.

In the meantime, Mactech came out with a detailed performance comparison between VMware and Parallels (here and here) that clearly demonstrated that, for my own personal needs, as opposed to my needs as a reviewer, Parallels was going to suit me much better. I went out and bought a copy. So far it's given me no grief, although I'm still figuring out how to optimize performance.

Understand that I hold no grudge against VMware; some of my friends work there! I know many people who are happy with their products. Heck, I might even have been one of them...if they'd given me a chance to find out. But they made my job as a responsible reviewer impossible. And in doing so, did themselves out of some (very likely) favorable press.

Ctein

Ctein's regular weekly column is published every Thursday morning.

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Matt]

I'd still be using Parallels if not for their awful, consumer-unfriendly Digital River delivery system. Wipe your harddrive? Sorry, that software you purchased is no longer available to you.

VirtualBox is the schizz/e for free! By schizz/e, I mean, virtualization is always a rather clunky and nerdy approach to things.

[erlik]

Heh. Join the club, we've got jackets.* :)

It varies wildly. Some companies are helpful to the max. Others ignore you completely. Third group will ignore you but will raise a stink if you write something unfavourable.

I had one company once that complained about something I wrote. A couple of years later, they fixed the very thing I objected to and announced that as an improvement. ;-)

(Although you've been a member for a long time and got your own jacket. :))

[KeithB]

I reluctantly installed Boot Camp on my new iMac (just to run Zoo and Roller Coaster Tycoon for my son, honest!) The experience could not have been more pleasant.

In fact, another reason to go with Apple Products is that the Apple User Support groups are fantastic! I never need Apple "Official" support.

[Ray]

The problem in many companies is the whole 'right hand not knowing what the left is doing' thing. Sales might have been jazzed to put out review product, but never consulted with Support to ensure that their policies and staffing could handle it. And a lot of companies have a silo'd internal structure where, no matter who you talk to from the Sales side of the house, they have zero weight with the Dev or Support people unless you're a paying customer. Sometimes not even then. It's a ridiculous way to do business, but fairly common (not standard, just common) with software companies.

[JL Sardiñas]

It's sad to hear that, since I'm a VMWare user since I switched to Mac, about 5 years ago... I'm still depending on many applications that need WIndows. I've used Fusion ever since I learned it existed, and it's always worked flawlessly and the performance, not being stellar is quite good. I suppose you installed VMWare Tools in the virtual machine, because you will have pedestrian performance otherwise... in case you have, it may be something hardware related (I guess)

I've been able to get a 3,5 score in a Windows 7 x64 running in a regular MacBook and it's because the little MacBook has an "average" card. All other scores are pretty high... most "native" machines I've seen don't reach that high.

Anyway... I may be wrong...

[ed hawco]

Wow! That's appalling!

I use Parallels on a Mac Mini to run Windows 7, and for the most part it installed flawlessly and everything runs well. Not like a rocket, but well enough for the 3 or 4 days a month that I need to work in a Windows environment.

My only complaints are that I find the Parallels support forums to be rather Byzantine. It's hard to find them, and when you make a post it's hard to find your way back to it later.

The other thing (and this is a constant problem in all computer environments) is the endless updates. Parallels likes to make it seem like you can just spark up Windows at the drop of a hat. So not.

What really happens is this: You start Parallels and are immediately urged to download the latest update. When you're done with that you start Windows. Then you get a big screen that says you need to update the Kaspersky security thing. That takes a couple of minutes. Then Windows starts and hey! You need to download the lastest Windows update!

Generally it takes about five full minutes to do all that. On one particular day last week it took 35 minutes before I could open my Windows application!

Not a problem specific to Parallels, but it does show that the "fast and seamless" thing is a bit of a myth.

I sometimes wonder if I should have gone with VMWare, as more people I know have taken that route. I'll be sure to check that comparison you linked to.

[Cw.]

I would say you gave them more than all of your patience, and more than a sufficient number of opportunities to establish good customer (and reviewer) relations.

I am disappointed to hear your tale. I have been a vmWare user for nearly 10 years. All of my production work is now done using 3 virtual servers running on vmWare server, and two virtual computers running on vmWare Workstation. It's my fault tolerant setup.

If I my first experiences had been like yours, though, I would have moved on as well.

[Kevin Halliburton]

This sort of thing is so hard to understand but the end result is as predictable as the sun coming up. Anything is possible but there is almost no way all of those channels could have failed without a significant underlying problem in the structure of the company. Turnover? I'll bet...

[mwg]

Unfortunately I'm not surprised. VMware's products are great, but I've seen some weird disconnects between marketing, sales and the engineering side of things. I've worked extensively with both the workstation products (including Fusion) and the server products (ESX, ESXi).

[ctein]

Dear Matt,

In the case of Parallels I bought a physical disk. In the case of products I download, I burn the executable (usually an installer) to a CD or two, and write any serial numbers and activation codes on the outside of the package.

I cannot recall a case of ever losing access to a program because of a computer failure, changing hardware (or even entire machines), etc. using this approach. And, yes, I have bought from Digital River.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Ray (and others),

Reviewers rarely depend upon end-user tech support when reviewing products. The main reason is that our problems almost always require escalating above level 3, and we may require considerably more technical explanation of what went wrong and why than someone who simply wants to get the software to work. Every software and hardware manufacturer out there offers higher levels of tech support; it's just that end users usually pay for this. It's almost universally understood that reviewers get that level of support (before my experience with VMWare, I would have simply said "universally").

I have to say that my experience was not only uncommon, it was unprecedented in my history of writing reviews. It's not a case of support not knowing what marketing is doing (I wouldn't expect them to), it's that nobody had any idea of how to get me to support I needed and the support technician I dealt with seemed profoundly uninterested, in fact utterly clueless, about the nature of the problem I was experiencing and the situation he had placed me and the company in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Ed,

I haven't run into the problem you're talking about; updates are fairly infrequent, at least with any flavors of OS I'm using. That said, the simplest solution for a program and OS you're rarely using is to turn off automatic updates. Keep in mind that almost all the patches are irrelevant to you; yes, they are based on problems the publisher has encountered, but the odds of that problem affecting you are very small. They are preemptive medicine. If everything seems to be working fine, do the application and OS updates at your convenience. That's what we did on our Win 2K machine for its entire life, and it worked just fine.

The first time you install a virgin program and OS can be quite "exciting", though. Parallels only required one update, but the version of Windows Vista I was installing was probably two years old. Under the circumstances, letting it do all the updates automatically was the prudent course of action -- some 150 patches later, it was finally current! Not at all to my surprise, Windows patching itself took longer than installing Parallels and Windows Windows Vista had taken.

On the other hand, virtualizing Boot Camp under Parallels was almost effortless.

~ pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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[Patman]

Hi, I think I had the same issue.

I will disregard VMWare's attitude as I am sure you did try hard to get some help from them.

The problem I had was simply a mistake I made configuring the software. Nothing wrong with Fusion, but to make it work at it's best, I had asked it to work with two processors.

You must realise that the mac OS is running simultaneously with the PC. As I only have 2 procs, you can't expect to use 2 processors for windows and none for Mac OS X.

I set Fusion back to one processor and it was working fine.

PF