Vista will 'wow' early adopters
By Susan Ferroa, channelnewsasia.com | Posted: 02 February 2007 1523 hrs

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Those who waited in line and rushed online to get their version of Microsoft Vista with its official launch in 30 countries, including Singapore, should be happily discovering the new features on their machines right now.

Those who prefer to wait and let teething problems iron themselves out may not have to hold out too long if Microsoft has done its homework as it says it has.

Being the solutions provider for half a billion customers around the world each year and the contact point for two million customers annually in Asia, Microsoft is making sure that with the new product launch there is not just support, but quality support for users.

While agreeing that there has never been a problem-free launch of any product, Manish Sinha, Managing Director of Customer Service and Support for Microsoft's Asia Pacific region is confident that whatever questions the customer might have with Vista, can be easily answered.

That's because of the strategy adopted combining, problem avoidance, making more information available, giving extra tools and extra people to make the life of consumers easier when it comes to using and trouble-shooting Windows Vista.

"The best problem is the problem that never happens" says Sinha who revealed that Vista was taken to 600 enterprise customers and some 20,000 consumers in a Beta stage, backed by 100 support professionals supporting nothing but the Beta product while the product was being developed. That means, Sinha points out, "the problems have been fixed, those information (needed) has been built into the product itself so that the consumers themselves will never, ever see those problems, so it's problems avoided."

Users who have questions or want to find out ways to trouble-shoot can call Microsoft.

"We have beefed up our back-end, we have added more people with alot more training", what that translates into as the Head of Customer Service and Support explains, "when a call comes in, an engineer is able to give the customer more information and much quicker because of the much broader back-end."

The global impact of Microsoft has seen Vista being released in different languages and the support reflects this with each country given a specific number to call or a website to visit. In addition, the CSS team have made extra effort, "for the different countries and the different languages it is customised" says Sinha.

The first line of trouble-shooting, if at all, will be the intuitive and interactive solutions that are activated through the tools built into Vista.

These include tools that enable users to get experts to remotely diagnose and solve the problem on the users PC, that is if users don't already find the solutions built into the system to fix issues with pre-existing software or games for example, that may not run as fast as before or even be incompatible with the new OS.

The trouble-shooting may also point users to website solutions which other vendors have also been busy updating for the introduction of Vista.

In terms of software, McAfee for instance has made its 2007 consumer security software suites compatible with Windows Vista, with the upgrade available online to active subscribers free-of-charge at its website.

As for Symantec, those who are running Norton Internet Security 2006 and 2007, Norton AntiVirus 2006 and 2007 and Norton Confidential designed for Windows XP can get a free Windows Vista compatibility upgrade online. The later versions of Norton Internet Security, Norton AntiVirus and Norton Confidential will be Vista-compatible.

As for hardware providers, HP has staked its claim to being the first PC maker to sell a Vista PC.

This was the HP Pavilion dv9209 Entertainment Notebook loaded with Vista Ultimate and sold in New Zealand to sports celebrity, Daniel Carter of the New Zealand rugby team who later donated the HP notebook to a local children’s charity.

Leveraging on its close relations with Microsoft, HP says all its consumer PCs and more than 450 printing and imaging products are Vista-ready in addition to a range of HP products that are Vista Premium-ready.

Another PC maker Lenovo, says it has integrated its ThinkVantage Technologies (TVTs) with Microsoft’s Windows Vista Enterprise to provide easy PC system recovery, wireless connectivity and security.