I generally like things being made available online. Sure, I have issues with putting data online, because when my connection goes out – and it will go out – I like to be able to get to it. But providing the option to get at things online is a nice feature. Making it so that they have to be retrieved online just blows. It really blows.
One of the hats that I wear in my life as a computer consultant has to do with networks – and when I’m wearing that hat, it means that I have to deal with Microsoft products. This really doesn’t mean that I am a Microsoft hater, because a lot of what they do is decent. But some days they do nothing other than make my life miserable. Take eOpen, for example.
Introduced a couple of years ago to allow you to store your licenses online, the navigation is bad. Really bad. Whoever is in charge of making an application for storing information and getting at it in an intuitive manner ought to be shot, because when you need to look up that licensing information, it’s virtually impossible to get. Luckily, for a couple of years, you only needed it briefly. But that all changed not long ago, when Microsoft actually decided to distribute software in this manner.
Now I get that they want to be all efficient, and that it will lead to software rental. I really do. I’m not even against the concept. If it’s done right. At this point, it’s not.
One of my customers, for instance, purchased a new server, and they also purchased SQL Server to go with it. After determining that we needed to download the software from eOpen, we clicked in the logical place – Software Downloads. Unfortunately, this just returned a message saying that we needed to accept the agreements, with a link back to the eOpen home page. That’s it. Nothing more. After twiddling about for the better part of an hour, we finally figured out that we needed to list the agreement, and way down at the bottom of the agreement in question is a box where you can type your name in lieu of a signature. Once you do, you have accepted the agreement, and you can get at your software.
Unfortunately, that’s not it. In this case, you then get the privilege of downloading nearly 3GB of data. Even over a decent connection, it’s still going to take more than 4 hours, according to the helpful download manager plugin. Oh, and did I mention that because of the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration, we couldn’t actually make that download happen (until we removed all those “protective” settings)? So we have a server, all buckled down, but we can’t actually download the software onto it. Nice thinking, Redmond.
I have no idea if this four-hour download will work, but I have to imagine that the cost of a DVD can’t be worth the customer dis-satisfaction that this is driving.
Comments
52 responses to “Microsoft eOpen Sucks”
After 24 hours waiting for the site to responsd I find it’ll only show the Cal keys and not the server keys that I’ve activated. A quick call to MS support advised that whilst Cals may appear instantly server products can take up to a week and they have no mechanism to give me my product key! Another project slips a week due to MS poor licensing service…
Count me in for ultra-jilted as well… We purchased Server 2003 along with 50 Terminal Server CALs and 50 Combined CALs… They charged my Visa quickly enough, but the CAL keys are nowhere to be found. eOpen is indeed down more than it is up… Does anyone have a phone number for them?
Sitting here staring at the eOpen download manager stuck at a download speed of 89KB/sec on my works T1 trying attempting to download a 5.64 GB ISO. Slow just doesn’t describe it enough. Microsoft is a rather large company with lots of $$$ what gives ???
And why am I having to download this media when I already received the media kit for Exchange 2007? Apparently the version of Exchange 2007 I recieved on DVD is not compatible with Server 2008 64 bit. It requires Exchange 2007 SP1 on disc.
sigh …..at least it’s Friday
We’ve been using EOpen for about six months now and whenever I log in I feel like I need to cross my fingers because it’s down so often.
Today I’ve been at the office for several hours and still can’t install a piece of software because the site is down and I’m unable to see my licensing information.
It’s absolutely ridiculous and inexcusable.
Yep. Just bought a server license and:
1. Did the 1/4 hour waste of time finding the agreement to sign, just like you.
2. Then even though the right product keys were there, on the download site, it was “service temporarily unavailable”.
3. The next day, the download service was back, but the versions I was permitted to download were previous service packs *AND* in foreign languages or 64-bit versions only. Nice ‘ole 32-bit Server 2003 in English wasn’t there.
4. Which led to a 30-minute 800-line call to M$. After blaming me for buying the wrong license, they admitted that the site was being updated (probably because some upper manager decreed that they rebuild the whole thing with .Net 2, Share Point Server, CardSpace or some other bad technology. Why they couldn’t do the update on a test server I don’t know–guess they can’t afford the hardware or software testers.
5. Today, you can’t even log in: “This site is not a Live ID site”. On the phone they said that the eOpen upgrade will be finished on April 5. My first attempt to get the software I paid for was on April 1–guess the joke was on me.
Exaclty the same – just spent nearly £14K on Sharepoint Software licensing and they can’t even send me a flipping CD – have spent nearly all day trying to get the eopen site to let me have my software but to no avail – I want my money back and will find different software for the job
The eOpen site is constantly down when I need it.
I can’t wait until open source finally takes over.
Can’t agree more on this matter. We have licenses that were bought in the U.S. but we live in the UK. So how do we get the software? Go to eOpen and click software download? Nope. It doesn’t even load the page. Funny how the site that is actually selling the software is fine but after you’ve paid for it you can’t even get the software. I’m not totally anti microsoft I think some of the software development teams are doing a fantastic job but I’d like to see some consistency.
It is the most useless piece of software by the software giant.
Currently using IE7 and VIsta it goes nuts sometimes when tring to to get to the new part where the downloads and license keys live – it just keeps opening window after window asking about live login.
If you put a coment in the comment field when adding a license it doesn’t happen.
Currently trying to downlaod software and it starts and stops perpetually- go figure that one.
Is it just me, or is the eOpen site down, as well as MSDN Subscriber Downloads?
Sigh.