New Game World

Digital Daily News for Nov. 9, 2009

By Richard M. Sherwin

A Recession in CE Tech Support?

Even the best company’s product can go splooey; it’s how well their tech support solves the consumer’s crisis that separate great companies from the mere mediocre.

The current recession has effectively wiped out billions of dollars, millions of jobs, and evidently, a recession in consumer electronic product tech support. In recent months, I have experienced an increase in poor tech support from some reputable CE companies. At the same time, I am impressed by other companies who do a superb job of taking care of customers.

I spoke with industry analyst Craig Bird of Segue Ventures about my experiences. He informed me that, “the recession has stressed most companies’ tech support programs, but this does not excuse poor performance. Companies can implement quality tech support programs that are effective and efficient; creating customer loyalty and improving product development.”

What I know is that as a result of my recent experiences, I will remain a loyal customer of those companies who took care of my tech problems, but not of those who failed to provide satisfactory tech support. It is a recession of another kind; the tech support recession.

1st Crisis: Backup Drive Conundrum -- I was transferring some old digital family photos, videos and financial records to a new backup drive. My backup drive, albeit a pretty old model, died. I had gotten another drive (A Seagate One Touch) and quickly tried to install it on my Mac. The program flashed me an error message; indicating that this new drive required a special format. I quickly suspected that it had something to do with a conflict between the Apple Mac and Microsoft Operating Systems. Unfortunately, Apple’s famed support didn’t know how to help me and, despite their politeness, were useless. Sometimes I think my poodle knows more about cables and accessories than Apple does.. Spending twenty plus minutes of my life talking with the Apple representative, who asked me everything from my mother’s maiden name to product serial numbers, resolved nothing.

Next, I called Seagate and got a message that said there was a five to 7 minute delay for a live operator, but I could get immediate help if I used their online chat. I hate wasting time and effort, so I quickly jumped onto Seagate Chat. To my pleasant surprise, they successfully guided me through a software patch installation and even gave me some great Apple Mac productivity tips; just another service that Apple failed to offer. Seagate even showed me how to change the format of this external hard drive (saving everybody time and effort) so I could easily go back to using a PC with this peripheral. Now I’m happy and I don’t have to go to my miniature poodle for Apple level tech support.

2nd Crisis: Plain English Please -- I really enjoy my Westinghouse Digital all purpose high res HDMI TV-PC in TV mode, so I decided to try it out as a monitor on my PC. This should be easy, right? The monitor is light and the HDMI cables are easy to hook up; what could go wrong? However, while the unit is a terrific blend of engineering design and performance; the company is having a tech support recession. First of all, when the HDMI connect didn’t work I called the 24-7 Westinghouse hot line and was told that someone will call me back in 2 hours, but that I should stay on the line if it was an emergency. I needed to get the product review done, not wait 2 hours for someone to call me back, so I held on. When the tech support guy got on the phone, he was almost unintelligible. If I heard him correctly, there was an almost hidden button on the device that would allow the user to switch from TV to PC. However, the switch wasn’t located where the support person said it was. I tried again to understand the tech, but finally asked to speak with someone who could speak better English. That may have upset him, because he hung up on my while “trying” to transfer the call. Two hours later someone did call back, but by that time I had used a borrowed high res TV-PC monitor made by Viewsonic to accomplish my mission.

3rd Crisis: Gotta Love Sharp -- My next crisis was with an older model Sharp HDTV that doesn’t have a HDML port but uses a DVI port for both TV and PC output-input. As has been my experience over the years, the Sharp people came through like champions. Tech support answered my call on a Sunday, in less than a minute, and guided me through the correct connection changes and also gave me some additional useful advice on that model. They even showed me a way to improve my viewing experience with a contrast setting in the on screen menu.

4th Crisis: Apple’s Tech Support Recession -- I called Apple to get support for the Microsoft Office for Mac. To my shock, Apple refused to support this product even though they sell it in their stores and promote it. If you are lucky, you can get through to Apple’s support in about ten minutes. Their speed answering myth is perpetrated by Consumer Reports and others. My evidence is not comprehensive, but in addition to my own bad experiences with Apple, my Apple Mac colleagues also complain about less than speedy support.

When I finally got through to Apple, I got a tech support person who appeared to know only a little about the software. He did not help me, but did blame the problem on three successive factors: 1) the user (me); 2) Microsoft; and 3) the New York Yankees (OK, maybe I imagined that one). Ironically, when I bought my Mac and “Microsoft Office for Mac, I paid for 3 years extra support; so in effect, I paid Apple to abuse me.

With no help from Apple, I tried to resolve the problem myself, but this time I lost all my content, contacts, calendar and notes on my Mac’s office program; Unbelievable! I hadn’t even used the program so I couldn’t have done anything wrong. Visibly upset, I called Apple…and waited…and waited…and…they didn’t even have a support person available! This evidently, is Apple own version of the tech support recession.

As a last resort, I called the Microsoft 24/7 help line and I can tell you now, authoritatively, that the “Pro Apple-anti Bill Gates” experts are wrong! Microsoft tech support was terrific. They answered immediately and got a person thoroughly knowledgeable with Microsoft’s Office for Mac. A polite, even humorous tech in Nova Scotia explained that when doing some forms of automatic backups on a Mac, the Mac will accidentally take the core elements and content of the Microsoft Entourage program and hide them or move them where they are not accessible. She also chided me nicely, saying that I may have contributed to this issue by not understanding the Mac backup system. But whether it was my mistake or the machine’s, in about 30 seconds this Microsoft employee helped me maneuver my Mac back to operational status and found the missing content. Great FREE service.

I spoke with Craig Bird about my experiences with Apple and Microsoft. He commented, “Microsoft made series of smart tech support decisions. First, they train their techs to be experts on specific product applications, and then they advertise specific phone numbers for the different support experts. Not only is this method efficient and effective, but it is cost effective for Microsoft.”

After this experience, I promise to always triple backup my family’s digital photos, music and videos and personal data on a Seagate Free Agent external hard drive and some very reliable flash drives from Clickfree (32 gigs in a credit card sized unit) and some San Disk Flash Music players that have enough extra storage to save my carry around content.

The tiny Seagate Free Agent Go holds500 gigs

My advice to readers has always been to not rely on just one form of backup and if your content holdings are that important, you need multiple backup options along with an online option, which you don’t have to spend thousands on. AOL is still a free source, so use your account to save important emails and documents. Same with Google and Yahoo and, for hard storage, Seagate has a range of external backup drives from $99 to $499 to meet every consumer need with Clickfree and SanDisk, truly pocket sized backup thumb drives for under $30.

Netflix May be the only truly Digital Convergent Company! Wii Say So!

On or about January 2010, Netflix will be available on all the gaming consoles including the Nintendo Wii and probably the new Nintendo HD. While the rental video firm made its bones on TiVo, LG and Raku systems, its recent foray into the Xbox was very successful. In addition, I believe that its pre-launch Sony Playstation 3 service is so talked about that when it lands on the Wii HD model, slated for early next year, the company’s service will also be available on every leading video device. In my opinion, Netflix foray into digital services is revolutionary, without hurting its legacy snail-mail delivery service.

The truly amazing thing about this latest Nintendo Wii version of Netflix is that the streaming version of the service doesn’t have and will probably never have the library that its sister snail-mail service provides. Right now the digital service has some three or four year old theatrical films, dozens of documentaries and tons of B-movies and older, never ready for prime time movies. It claims 10,000 and growing movies available to stream, but a recent survey of Netflix customers who love the immediacy of steaming movies to their TVs and or PCs, complained that the selection was not like VuDu and even Amazon Unbox for popular films.

“I don’t think the major movie studios are ever going to allow immediate rentals of the latest movies,” says industry analyst Craig Bird of Segue Ventures, “they don’t want to lose revenues license fees from movie theaters, and at least for the next few years, people will continue to use pay per view for same day release movies and shows. I would add that while Blockbuster still carries top rentals in stores, you won’t see the latest and greatest of Hollywood on a low price streaming service.”

“We Can Hear You, We Just Don’t Care” Say Many Mobile Users!

In the last 72 hours, the venerable Motorola, which hasn’t produced a popular mobile phone for any service provider in years, introduced its first Google phone for Verizon….supposedly fixing some of the many flaws that were in the Google phone for other service providers. RIM Blackberry upgraded its underrated and poor selling Storm and also showed off its new look “Bold”model for T-Mobile and AT&T. The new Bold is one of the fastest out of the box easy to use yet powerful and fun Smart Phone s in recent memory….and Blackberry’s Desktop software and unbelievably terrific tech and customer support saves the inconsistent mobile carriers repeat tech support calls almost all the time.

Not to be outdone, HTC, the Asian OEM maker of mobile phones, showed off a Windows Mobile 7 version Smart phone….which Microsoft is banking on to make Windows Mobile a success.

I am sure Sprint, while trying to stave off Cablevision from buying or burying them, will unveil a new device, if they stay in business that long. And Apple’s image leading but far from best selling IPhone picks up 1000s of more useless “Apps” for its AT@T customers, while millions of customers clamor for the Verizon version of the IPhone which is being tested inside some lab somewhere, as we speak.

If you are in the growing area of the U.S. that can get T-Mobile’s non Blackberry phones, all of those phones will get you a small screen browsing experience, a pretty reliable method of getting and answering and composing email. And if you like: the ability to listen to music, view photos and videos and watch and download almost any content….and in most cases give your fingers a work out with instant messaging, texting and twittering.

But an ex boss of mine in the newspaper business, who now works in another field which requires mobile communication, still does what he thinks most people actually like to do with their latest cell-phone. “If an email or some form of audio-visual content is important enough for me whether for business or pleasure, I still like to sit back and watch, listen, and experience that call, picture, video, song on a PC or TV, and I don’t need it in a car, train, plane, or bus...unless I was saving someone’s life or someone was saving mine. I just want the phone to work and, in 2009 almost 2010, I wish these service providers would realize this!” My buddy recently went into an AT&T store for himself and a Verizon store for his significant other asking for a simple under $100 mobile phone that had decent battery life. Neither retail outlet offered him that solution.

Visio Victor Vision Vaulting Over TV Victims

The consumer Electronics Assn. is now reporting that former upstart TV maker Visio has gone past Sony, Panasonic and Samsung in monthly sales of TVs. Adding to this woe for some traditional audio-video manufacturers is that the Chinese-American company has held up its terrific return, repair and support policies which offer a no questions asked in home service for a year….And industry wags are saying that while audio equipment both high end and mass market graded product is down again this season, Visio is contemplating going after that market (the Denons, Bose and Onkyo’s) with an offering maybe by the end of the year that could get onto shelves not just at Wal-Mart but the wholesale clubs like Costco and BJs and then on to the regional stores like Bernie’s of New England and J@R in New York City. Visio’s vision? GET SHELF SPACE AT BEST BUY for these audio products by the spring.

Only competitive bug in the way may be Sanyo-Fisher which is expected to upgrade its mass market offerings with a so called “better class of home audio equipment” too. “Sanyo-Fisher also has a terrific relationship with Wal-Mart and other mass market budget stores,” says an industry source, and this could speed-up Visio’s strategy if there’s push back from Wal-Mart, the place where Visio still makes it most money.

Bytes and Pieces

Sonos®, Inc., the leading developer of wireless multi-room music systems for the home, announced that the Sonos ZonePlayer™ S5, the all-in-one wireless music system you can control with an iPhone, iPod® touch or any Sonos Controller, is now available in the United States.  The S5 will be available globally later this month.  In addition, they released Sonos Software v3.1, a one-button free software update for all global Sonos customers that includes Twitter functionality. The S5 has a suggested retail price of $399 and can be purchased at Sonos US retailers o www.sonos.com

Boston Acoustics®, the very reliable and growing in quality rankings manufacturer of high-performance loudspeakers, introduced its Reflection Series loudspeakers, six models that combine technology and performance to deliver clean, balanced sound in an elegant, design. It includes the RS 230 compact bookshelf (MAP: $249.99ea); RS 260 bookshelf (MAP: $399.99ea); RS 244C center-channel (MAP: $499.99); RS 223 compact LCR (MAP: $399.99), RS 334 floorstanding (MAP: $699.99ea); and the RPS1000 subwoofer (MAP: $899.99). The new Reflection Series shares many of the same advanced technologies found in Boston Acoustics’ flagship VS Series.

The new JVC XV-BP11 is a truly versatile high definition player, offering playback of high definition Blu-ray discs, plus playback of the AVCHD format, the high definition format widely used for HD camcorders, including the JVC HD Everio line. The new JVC XV-BP11 Blu-ray player retails for $199.95.

Astak Inc.'s innovative new product, the Mole, is a stand alone Internet camera that provides an easy and affordable way to capture, view and share unattended video over the Internet. Featuring automatic network configuration, the Mole makes it simple for home or business users to remotely view and share video in real-time from any web browser, social networking site, or Internet-capable cell phone, including the iPhone.

Unlike current webcams that require a PC, or IP cameras that are complicated to set up and often require customer software to view, the Mole is the first "do it yourself, view from anywhere” solution for home or business surveillance, health and family care (elder or children), social network sharing, pet or bird watching, and more. It’s also an ideal way to keep an eye on your office or home while traveling. the Mole is available at Fry's Electronics, Costco, NewEgg.com, Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Astak.com, with an MSRP of $299.00.