

Buying VMWare Fusion: A lesson in how to drive customers away - tghw
http://blog.bitquabit.com/2011/02/22/buying-vmware-fusion/

======
ironkeith
I recently bought Parallels, and it wasn't much better. From the email I sent
them (after I finally found an email address):

\- When I arrived on the checkout page (from the link in the nice email you
sent), you had tacked on a $8 digital backup fee. That is a complete bullshit
charge, and you added it by default with no explanation as to what it was, or
why I would want it. It was also not particularly obvious whether or not I
could _remove_ said add-on. It is a shameless, low class, money grab.

\- I switched my pricing from USD to CAD, and you added $10 despite the two
currencies trading at parity (I quickly swapped back, and just paid in USD).
Another shameless, senseless money grab.

\- You require my name, home address, email address, and phone number in order
for me to purchase downloadable software via Paypal. You do not _need_ any of
that information. You _want_ it so that some tool in marketing can have pretty
powerpoints. It should be optional. (Making it required simply requires me to
make up information; a waste of both our time.)

\- The “send me email spam” checkbox was checked by default. The only reason
for this is to get permission to spam people too lazy to pay attention to the
checkout. It’s another tasteless scam formulated by a greedy, customer hostile
executive tool.

\- After purchasing, I entered my serial number, and was informed that I would
have to register to receive updates to the software I just purchased. I cannot
explain to you how incredibly asinine I find that policy.

\- The registration process once again required information I didn’t want to
give you (requiring me to give you fake information)

\- After registering, and confirming my registration via email, and entering
my email/password combo into the application I was told that I had given
invalid credentials, and to try again. (I hadn’t. I’m pretty good with
copy/paste.) So I guess NO UPDATES FOR ME?

~~~
apsurd
wait ... so why did you buy it then?

~~~
svlla
so you think if you buy you can't have complaints? interesting world you must
live in.

~~~
lovskogen
He could have gotten Virtualbox.

~~~
Kliment
With the uncertain future that comes from being managed by Oracle now.

~~~
evilduck
Not totally uncertain, there's the GPL'd version which contains almost all the
functionality non-commercial desktop users would require (except USB 2.0
device speeds). Oracle can derail VirtualBox the trademark, but they can't
prevent a fork.

------
tzs
He guesses VMWare stores credit cards based on them using the last 4 digits to
help identify orders. Actually, it is probably Digital River, not VMWare.
VMWare uses Digital River to handle actually process orders. (That's why the
site he went to for order lookup was findmyorder.com, not vmware.com.
Findmyorder.com is a Digital River site).

You can't really infer credit card storage from them keeping the last 4.
Merchants need to keep the first 6 and last 4 in order to process chargebacks
and refunds. When a customer charges back all the bank tells the merchant is
first 6, last 4, and amount of charge back (oh, and the date of the charge
back). Furthermore, the amount does not always match an amount the merchant
charged. So, the merchant needs to be able to look up orders by first 6/last
4, approximate amount, and date-that-it-must-have-been-before.

PCI allows first 6 and last 4 to be stored unencrypted and kept as part of
general customer information. The strict security requirements (encryption,
kept off of networks not involved with actually using the card, and so on)
only apply to the rest of the digits.

~~~
maguay
Yes, it definitely sounds like a typical Digital River experience. They're
really a mess. Microsoft uses them to fulfill online Microsoft Office orders,
and it takes so many steps you want to scream.

If there are no other reasons, this is why I want a solid App Store on Windows
that has every app I'd want to buy. Seriously; it's just too much trouble to
give companies money sometimes!

~~~
pyre
The solution isn't necessarily an App Store on Windows, it's to build better
purchasing experiences. You're reasoning is sort of like: "I have serious
issues with all GM cars due to shoddy quality, therefore all cars must be
manufactured by Toyota because I like them."

~~~
Pooter
I think his reasoning is more like "I see a fundamental design flaw in all
other cars which Toyota has recognized and addressed in a way that I like, and
wish other manufacturers would adopt that solution or one similar to it."

You don't have to agree, but don't poo-poo his desire for a unified, simple
application purchasing experience in his OS of choice. That's a customer
talking about what they want out of a product.

~~~
pyre
My point was more along the lines of "unified purchasing experience" != "good
purchasing experience." You could have all apps unify on a horrible purchasing
experience, no?

------
wh-uws
If you are not in need of customer support the answer to this problem is to
use Virutalbox

<http://www.virtualbox.org/>

Its just about as fast, has all the same features (including 3d support) and
best of all its free and opensource

~~~
oconnore
Virtualbox (I tried with the latest as of late January) would not run Skype
for me.

VMware worked immediately.

~~~
wazoox
Why would you want to run Skype in virtualbox? Skype runs on Mac, Windows and
Linux.

~~~
tedunangst
Because you don't trust skype not to dick up your real computer?

~~~
wazoox
Sounds valid.

------
embwbam
I actually ended up using a pirated serial after I'd purchased VMWare because
it was easier to get than the legitimate one.

~~~
tdfx
I use VMWare Fusion all the time. I spent 30 minutes trying to buy it and 30
seconds getting a pirated serial. I think the software is well worth the price
and I'd happily give them the money if they could provide a reasonable way for
me to do so.

------
rosser
I've pinged a friend at VMWare about this. It's not her department, but she
should be able to pass it along towards the people whose problem it should be.

EDIT: Word's been passed along. Don't know if anything will actually come of
it, but (at least some of) the people whose problem it should be are aware.

~~~
andybak
The real test will be whether they've got the sense to spend 20 minutes
signing in here and engaging us in dialogue.

~~~
gecko
I don't know that anyone engaged us here, but someone from VMware did engage
me over at the blog: [http://blog.bitquabit.com/2011/02/22/buying-vmware-
fusion/#c...](http://blog.bitquabit.com/2011/02/22/buying-vmware-
fusion/#comment-154505634)

~~~
rosser
I have no way of knowing if that person is the one my friend contacted (not
least because I can't view the comments; do I need a Disqus account to see
them, or something? That's a bit of a fail, too, IMO.), but I'm thrilled to
see they're talking with you.

------
samlittlewood
The Humble Indie Bundle games pack did this _so_ well:

\- Very simple purchasing - a single page

\- Perpetual download codes

\- No DRM

------
sudonim
Yeah... I've been buying VMWare for my team. After buying it twice online, I
started buying it from amazon boxed because it's cheaper than the digital
version from VMWare and you can still get the stupid rebate they are currently
offering. (I hate rebates).

------
mwsherman
This is what's selling me on OS-vendor-provided App Stores. Of course there
are many reasons a self-respecting hacker would turn up their nose at such a
thing. But product activation and billing really should not be novel
experiences in 2011.

~~~
patio11
To be fair, you can do a _lot_ better than Digital River, whose code is
largely stuck in 1998. I mean, BCC can phone home to the server to get a
registration key without the user ever needing to read their onscreen
instructions (quite helpful because they frequently don't). It takes less than
a day of engineer time to take 90% of the pain out of this. (Though I don't
think that is an option if management has decided to go with Digital River --
then you're pretty much at the mercy of their operation.)

------
devicenull
findmyorder.com really looks like your typical phishing site. I don't think
I'd be giving them any of my information.

------
obilgic
[http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/75-how-not-to-design...](http://css-
tricks.com/video-screencasts/75-how-not-to-design-a-checkout/)

~~~
steveklabnik
So, I watched this whole thing. Then I noticed the URL on the end... Here it
is:

<http://download.navicat.com/download/navicat8_mysql_en.dmg>

Go ahead. Click it.

~~~
uxp
You can get newer releases from their page directly, in case anyone wanted to
try navicat. It's a pretty good utility, though I personally still like to use
the respective SQL server command line utility shells. It's a 30-day trial.

<http://www.navicat.com/en/download/download.html>

~~~
butterfi
I used Navicat for along time, and its not bad software. These days though
I've been using the free "Sequel Pro" for OS X. Does all the same things I
need to do, as long as I'm on a mac. <http://www.sequelpro.com/>

------
rimantas
Well… I got Parallels as boxed software sent to me (was working from home).
Alas, I got an older version, and upgrading required some mind boggling
stupidity (some proof of purchase I did not have, some personal details, etc.)
So I decided it was not worth the hassle and bought VMWare Fusion (with my own
money) online instead.

------
Locke1689
I got my VMWare Fusion key in the email. Two seconds, confirmed. I guess YMMV.
I've been a closed beta tester for VMWare Fusion for ~2 years as well.

------
denimboy
I have been using VirtualBox on Mac and Linux for a couple years now with
fantastic results. Easy upgrades and free as in beer and (most of it) as in
speech too.

Recently started using Vagrant <http://vagrantup.com/> to configure virtual
machines with VirtualBox and Chef. Awesome. I recommend this combo to all
devs.

------
aelaguiz
You think that's bad, you should hear my experience trying to buy a license to
the virtual center for the free version of vmware server in 2009. At one point
I had a 3 way call going with VMWare's local vendor and VMWare corporate where
they were both denying such a thing as a "free" version of vmware server ever
existing.

The last few years of dealing with vmware have shown me quite clearly that
vmware doesn't care about little guys. They obviously make all of their money
from large business customers.

------
jbhelms
I notice that no one has mentioned Hyper-V yet. While it isn't perfect it is
free. Mind you, you do need to be running Windows Server, but if you are
already running windows you should consider it.

I am curious how it stands up to all the others. Virtual Box didn't have it in
their grid.

~~~
aceofspades19
I've used Hyper-V before and its pretty much garbage compared to VirtualBox
and VMWare. 1\. There is no usb device support that I could find, and you
can't add any devices besides hard disks that I've seen 2\. No shared folders
at all, you need to use smb to have any file sharing capability, short of
setting up ftp 3\. They pretty much only support virtualized windows 2008,
they have SOME Linux support but thats limited to Red Hat and OpenSuse mostly
4\. You can only install it on Windows Server 2008(well thats a given but its
still a drawback) 5\. Its interface isn't the best, I find it really hard to
find stuff and everything is in non-obvious locations

------
jrockway
I recently downloaded VirtualBox. It runs Windows perfectly and it's Free
software.

------
nailer
Thanks for posting this. I use and love VMware products (Fusion now, other
products since Workstation 1.0) and I'd forgotten how hair-pullingly painful
it was buying Fusion for the first time. This re-jogged those memories.

------
wazoox
And this is why I use Free Software only. Thanks for the reminder.

------
hdragomir
I'm relieved I will never go through this process. This does not sound like a
normal checkout process to me.

------
Uchikoma
When I bought November last year, I did get the keys in the confirmation
email.

------
Pooter
I had roughly this same experience with buying VMWare Fusion two years ago.
Nice to see they're paying attention to customers.

~~~
froydnj
After two years and a rant that happened to get posted to a major tech news
site. Doesn't really sound like "paying attention to customers" to me. How
many times has this happened in the past two _years_ and why haven't things
gotten any better?

------
bane
So, to recap:

\- I bought a product that _needed a license key_ ;

\- in order to use it, I was sent to a _3rd party_ site I had never dealt with
before _that provides the keys_ ;

\- the site requires me to enter part of my credit card _as my proof of
purchase_ to use it;

\- it then takes me to a totally broken page, which, thankfully, has a license
key;

\- that license key is rejected for some indeterminate amount of time by
vmware.com _due to a known slowness problem with their key distribution
system_ ;

\- once it’s finally not rejected, vmware.com still merrily asks me to give it
an email that it knows damn well it didn’t give me _but still accepts just the
correct key from the key distro site anyways_

There, I fixed it so it's not such blog spam, buy software much?

------
Ahmes
I'm sorry, but how is this news worthy?

As far as I can tell, some guy bought a copy of VMWare Fusion with a
moderately poor customer experience, can't activate it within the first half
hour, writes a blog post to complain and gets his buddies at Fog Creek to
upvote.

Why on earth did you think other people would be interested in this?

~~~
tdfx
This story is a case study in how not to sell software. This is exactly what I
would expect to see at HN.

~~~
Ahmes
Oh FFS, really? Really??

There are an infinite number of ways to communicate how _not_ to do things.
Enumerating them only serves to decrease the entropy rate.

What I suspect is most people enjoyed this article because VMware made a fool
of themselves, but not, as you suggest, because it provides an enlightening
anecdote that will inspire the reader to avoid a common pitfall and yield an
effective checkout process.

~~~
khafra
I suspect you're getting downvoted for your tone, because your point is
legitimate:"reversed stupidity is not intelligence" -EY

~~~
tghw
While it is true that "reversed stupidity is not intelligence", that does not
mean negative examples are without merits.

Someone once said to me "A smart person learns from their mistakes, a
brilliant person learns from other people's mistakes."

Positive examples show you what you should do and how you should do it, but
they often leave out _why_. A negative example makes it very clear _why_ you
should do things a certain way and avoid doing them other ways.

