Class Action Suit?

[Carlisle J. Percival, M.D.]

You know 3 years ago on a PC I had a Dell Pentium 3 with about half the
processing speed, 256 meg of RAM vs 1.5 gb now, 64meg vram vs 128 now in
Office XP and my movies ran full screen smoothly without a hitch. This year
I bought this new G4 and Office 2004 for Mac and since PowerPoint is what I
use most, it's like a $3000 paperweight.

Are there enough of us to put some pressure on these guys? This QuickTime
issue is just WRONG. Service Pack 1 makes the stuttering less but still way
less than acceptable. Does anyone have a website where we can start a list
of plaintiffs?

Carl Percival

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Hi Dr. Percival,

Please forgive me if you feel my intrusion is out of place. I do not work
with QuickTime or Mac PPT and do not work for Microsoft, but feel I should
step in and offer some help. At the recent PPTLive conference in San Diego,
I was able to interact personally with several Microsoft PowerPoint
employees and these are some of the things that I feel confident in assuring
you.

1) Microsoft does listen. They are very dedicated to providing the best
user experience possible, and they learn what is important by listening to
their users. You have used one method of communicating (this newsgroup) and
if you have not, I'd also recommend using the Product Feedback site.
http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

2) Save your money. In my opinion, class action suits only make the lawyers
richer. I assume that you are interested in MS improving their support for
a third party (Apple) format, rather than removing their integration of it.
Let's help them to focus on improvements rather than defense.

3) Be patient. It takes a lot of complex coding to keep PowerPoint as
simple to use as it is. Once they track the source of the problem down and
find a solution, there is a lot of debugging and testing required before it
can be distributed to users. Things that you would not think of need to be
tried, pushed, and documented. Any version of the operating system or
program (as well as other vendor's loaded software) may interfere with the
solution, so need to be included in the tested phase. All of this will need
to be done prior to presenting the solution.

4) Be understanding. Sometimes the problem is not in under the control of
the PowerPoint team. If PowerPoint relies on the OS to do something and it
doesn't, they have to evaluate if PowerPoint can take it over, or if it can
be worked around. Not all problems are caused by a change in PowerPoint.
Again, the PPT team will look for different/better solutions, but these may
be difficult. Trust me, they are very concerted about problems and give
them a very high priority.

5) For now, use the solution that does what you need. Not all upgrades and
new version releases are beneficial to all users in all cases. I am
confident that MS will improve the QuickTime performance in the new PPT for
MAC version, but it may be a while.

To use a familiar analogy... if you do your job completely correctly,
incorporate state of the art techniques, research the patient and history,
use the finest pharmaceuticals available, stay up on all the journals and
your certifications; it does not mean that the patient will have a
completely successful operation. Sure the anesthesia part will be fine, but
there is a lot more to an operation then just putting someone under. We
learn, we improve, we change and get better.

--
Bill Dilworth
Microsoft PPT MVP Team
(a Microsoft user, like you, not an employee)
===============
Please spend a few minutes checking vestprog2@
out www.pptfaq.com This link will yahoo.
answer most of our questions, before com
you think to ask them.

Change org to com to defuse anti-spam,
ant-virus, anti-nuisance misdirection.
..
..

 

[Lawrence DEMBO]

I think what you're saying is right Bill, however there is no point in JUST
LISTENING...they should tell the truth and say from the start....we are
having issues with movies playing in ppt 2004, we are having issues with
redraw speed etc........There has been NO communication on any official
platform except newsgroups about these very serious issues (so serious that
I cannot use ppt and have to use a pc for my presentations).

Its all very well to say they're fixing it and its complex but they should
have to tell the truth ie if you want to use video in a ppt presentation
then, don't buy this product or if you think that ppt is compatible with pc
versions If you have video in the presentation then it isnt.......they may
or may not want ot say why, but the reason there is SO MUCH anger is that
people have been told that the product integrates seamlessly (read every mac
magazine or microsoft press release) when clearly it doesn't....

I agree that suing doesn't make it better but having microsoft defend itself
is better than the ear piercing silence currently emanating from Seattle.

Lorry

Australia



Ps without this forum and the help of the MVPs who do not work for microsoft
I would have been stuck too many times to count........thank you. Are there
any sites / blogs where people are writing about the meeting you just
attended?

 

[John Perez]

Bill, I agree 100% with everything you say. I know the MBU are
dedicated to making Mac Office a great product. However, they have
dropped the ball on the QuickTime performance bug - big time.

1) They have known about the QuickTime bug since Powerpoint 2004 was
released 4-5 months ago - the bug was also in the 30 trial version
they posted before it's release. I and alot of other users have
e-mailed, posted on Mactopia, called their tech support numbers and
sent feedback via Powerpoints built in reporting system. One service
release later - it's still there!!!!

2) The point is Powerpoint users are at the end of their tethers, and
have tried every other method to get this fixed. Are you saying we
should wait 2 years for Office 2006 to get this fixed or 8 months for
Service Release 2. We have been very patient up to now....

3) More annoying than anything - Powerpoint X plays QuickTime files
PERFECTLY. If it works on 'old code' why can't it work now. As I've
said they have known about this for a LONG TIME and it's not a system
specific bug - it effects EVERY Mac no matter how old or new and what
version of QuickTime and OS X your running.

4) If it's not in Microsofts control - they should tell us rather than
say nothing. Powerpoint X QuickTime perfomance is perfect - why can't
Powerpoint 2004 perform the same???????

5) I need the new compatability and features Office 2004 (and
Powerpoint 2004) brings to the table. I can't use it because of one
LONG STANDING BUG that Microsoft know about. I have a site with 50
Macs NEEDING to upgrade - but can't as we use video in most of our
presentations (we are an Advertising Agency).

We need Microsoft to tell us whats going on or a Class action suite
and bad publicity might follow

 

[Greg Pinelo]

I couldn't agree more. I'm also with an ad agency (a fellow Omnicom firm,
my BBDO friend . I need PPT to work. It's mission critical. This is
unacceptable.

MVPs: I am appreciative of all the good advice you dispense, but I think us
users have been EXTREMELY patient and understanding. We are customers
who've paid a lot of money for a product that is defective. We deserve
better, and I've had enough of excuses. None of them wash.

 

[Carlisle J. Percival, M.D.]

Hi Bill,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. I appreciate your
thoughts.
However, to use your analogy, if I have a problem with a patient, I
communicate with them immediately. I tell them the nature of the problem in
terms that they'll understand. I tell them what I'm doing to ameliorate the
situation and when if ever they can expect results. As a matter of fact, I
recently listened to a continuing medical education conference on medical
malpractice given by a big shot attorney. Want to know what he said? One
of the main mistakes made is not telling patients (that would be me in this
case) when there is a problem, what it is, what is being done about it and
when and if they can expect results. "We don't know" would be better than
what is going on now. They treat us like mushrooms. They keep us in the
dark and feed us horse manure
There is no warning on the website about movies not working in 2004 yet to
view info in these posts
and elsewhere on the web, they've known about the problem for several
months. In the FAQ section on the support page, it's not even there as a
known issue.
I bought and paid for this product online. Honestly, I haven't tried to
return it but I would imagine that it being software that is already
registered that I wouldn't have much luck.

I still submit that they are not doing a good job of dealing with the
problem. One of the first things that one should do is publically admit
that it exists like in the known issues on the support page. What's with
all the secrecy??
Once again thanks for your reassurance. It was not intrusive not out of
place

Carl

 

[Lawrence DEMBO]

I think what you're saying is right Bill, however there is no point in JUST
LISTENING...they should tell the truth and say from the start....we are
having issues with movies playing in ppt 2004, we are having issues with
redraw speed etc........There has been NO communication on any official
platform except newsgroups about these very serious issues (so serious that
I cannot use ppt and have to use a pc for my presentations).

Its all very well to say they're fixing it and its complex but they should
have to tell the truth ie if you want to use video in a ppt presentation
then, don't buy this product or if you think that ppt is compatible with pc
versions If you have video in the presentation then it isnt.......they may
or may not want ot say why, but the reason there is SO MUCH anger is that
people have been told that the product integrates seamlessly (read every mac
magazine or microsoft press release) when clearly it doesn't....

I agree that suing doesn't make it better but having microsoft defend itself
is better than the ear piercing silence currently emanating from Seattle.

Lorry

Australia



Ps without this forum and the help of the MVPs who do not work for microsoft
I would have been stuck too many times to count........thank you. Are there
any sites / blogs where people are writing about the meeting you just
attended?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

MVPs: I am appreciative of all the good advice you dispense, but I think us
users have been EXTREMELY patient and understanding.

MVPs are users as well... We are affected the same way by the same
bugs...

Corentin