Experience Reinforces Microsoft Misgivings (Opinion)

Most people who have worked with me in any area related to technology know I’m not a big fan of Microsoft.

Others who have worked with me and regularly read this column know most of what I write about here is based on the direct experiences I’ve had in the previous few weeks. Some have asked me to quit doing this when it involves them. Fair enough.

Microsoft hasn’t sent a note or called, so I am free to write about this month’s experiences with their products. Here goes.

A company I am working with needed three new laptops. There were various reasons why:  machine age, old Microsoft software that didn’t seem to want to work well with new Microsoft software, dead CD drives, etc.

My view was that Apple’s MacBook laptops should be purchased. This went over like the proverbial lead balloon.

The users didn’t want to have to learn to navigate on a Mac. Even though the machines they had were old enough they were running Windows XP, the users felt Windows 7 would be an easier transition. They also didn’t want to be forced to learn a different version of Microsoft Office. Besides all of that, they informed me the Windows laptops were much less expensive than the Mac laptops.

So, taking all of that into due consideration, I selected a business-class laptop from Dell. Fully loaded with the latest version of Microsoft Office, the price worked out to be about $500 less than a similarly situated Mac laptop.

So, the business saved $1,500, right?

Have you ever tried to migrate data and applications from a Windows XP machine to a new Windows 7 machine? It’s not a pretty process, especially if the CD drive on the source machine is either dead or extremely flaky.

The set-up and migration process for the three new machines took more than nine hours. At standard consulting rates for this type of work of $100 an hour, that’s $900 spent on day one.

The business users each spent a half-day without their computers. Based on an average salary of $60,000 with benefits, the cost of this non-productive time was easily $500 or more.

At this point, $1,400 of the $1,500 savings had been spent.

It was then we discovered the machines would not connect to the wireless network that was in place. The fix was easy once we got a technician to look at it. Lost time for the users total was only about an hour. Technician time was about an hour. Another $200-plus shot.

Less than 24 hours into the process, we had more than spent the price difference between the Windows laptop and the Mac laptop.

The local Mac store’s price offer for the Mac laptops included complete data migration overnight. No cost for a technician and no lost time for the users. The Mac natively connected to the wireless network and required no special attention – I know, I have a Mac on that same network that has always worked without issue.

And then there was training.

Microsoft, in their efforts in “enhancing the user experience,” has evolved Microsoft Office to the point where even experienced Office users are lost when getting a newer version. This, combined with the learning curve for Windows 7, has troubled efficiency from the first day the users had the new laptops. Unfortunately, as the “techie” on site, many of the learning issues work their way to me.

Would there have been a similar time-consuming learning curve on new Mac laptops? Possibly, but unlikely.

Less than two days into this exercise with Windows 7 laptops, I totally regretted the purchase. After spending a few years being a Mac user, everything about Windows 7 seemed to be more difficult – even those features that are clearly designed to make a Windows machine behave more like a Mac than previous versions.

It was then the fun really started. One of the users received an email with a link that – you guessed it – they shouldn’t have made the decision to click.

So the Windows 7 laptop, seemingly protected by the Dell-installed anti-virus agent, got a virus. So, an hour of my time shot along with an hour or two of user downtime to get things cleaned up.

I won’t be signing any more purchase orders for Windows 7 laptops.

Steve Hankins is CEO and co-founder of Accio.US of Springdale, a technology company providing advisory and management services for small to medium-sized businesses. He may be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter as @stevehankins or @accious.