Bell Canada Stops Sending Tech Calls To India…. Not Satisfied With The Results…. Imagine How Customers Feel

I have to go check the temperature in hell as this a reader pointed me towards this piece of news. Bell Canada will apparently stop sending tech support calls to India:

“Some of our offshore calling has not done what we’ve wanted it to do,” chief executive officer George Cope told shareholders.

I guess that means that going to India didn’t provide the same quality of technical support that in house people could do at a much lower price point.

The article also mentions this:

BCE declined to say how many calls are made to its call centres in North America and abroad, but said the decision would have no impact on jobs. The company has been shedding thousands of jobs as part of its effort to control costs.

Note the “no impact on jobs” part. Could that mean that Bell is going to contract out these services to a domestic or US call center? Perhaps. The article doesn’t really say, but I’d be shocked if they brought those jobs in house.

I’m guessing that customers of Bell who have been transfered to their tech support are jumping for joy right now.

Lance Armstrong Wants The Twitterati To Find His Bike [UPDATED]

Cancer survivor and seven time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong had his one of a kind time trial race bike pinched by evil doers thieves from his team’s truck earlier this week. He immediately sent out an SOS to Twitter users for help. I just had a look at his Twitter feed and it has over 122,000 people following this at the moment.

I’m an avid cyclist myself and I know how painful it can be when you get a customized bike stolen. I truly hope Lance gets his bike back and the evil doers thieves get what’s coming to them.

By the way, this AP story has more details about the theft.

UPDATE: Sacramento PD found his bike today. It’s now clear that evil doers thieves need to fear the power of the Twitterati.

Microsoft: “We Don’t Make Money From XP Downgrades”

I’m not sure I buy this myself, but Microsoft has responded to this lawsuit by saying that it doesn’t make any money from Vista to XP downgrades:

“Microsoft does not charge or receive any additional royalty if a customer exercises those [downgrade] rights,” said Microsoft spokesman David Bowermaster in an e-mail late last week. “Some customers may choose or need to obtain media or installation services from third parties to install the downgrade version.”

Now that sounds like what I was talking about in my original post about this issue. Microsoft never used to charge you if you wanted to downgrade to an earlier OS. So the charges that OEMs like Dell and Lenovo have been charging have always struck me as being weird. This therefore implies that the OEMs are screwing the consumer. Dell for one says that’s not the case, and the costs that they charge consumers come from Microsoft:

Dell countered that although it did charge $20 to install XP on the machine, as well as to cover the cost of the additional media, the bulk — $120 of the $150 — was the price of upgrading the PC from the standard Home Premium to the more expensive Business edition.

And:

“Microsoft mandates that customers who want to downgrade to XP must purchase the license to Vista Business or Vista Ultimate,” said Dell spokesman David Frink last December. “[That's] typically about a $130 premium, though some retail outlets charge more.”

The reason for the upgrade to Vista Business or Ultimate is that there are no downgrade rights from the home versions of Vista. Therefore you have to buy more upscale version of Vista to downgrade back to XP. I’m sure that the cash from that will somehow end up in Microsoft’s bank account at the end of the day. Which means that one could argure that they do in fact make money from XP downgrades. After all, If a customer wanted a XP and they were buying a machine with Vista Home on it, they have to upgrade to the Business or Ultimate version of Vista to get XP. That’s extra cash for Microsoft as the customer has just been upsold.

But I’m likely pulling a Fox Mulder here. Having said that, the truth is out there and will likely be revealed in court.

Cisco To Bundle Trend Micro Security Into Consumer Routers

Cisco via its Linksys brand wants to protect you from the bad guys that are lurking on the Internet. To that end, they’ve signed a deal with Trend Micro to stuff their technology into Linksys routers:

This multi-layered security offering helps provide network protection for family PCs and other home-network devices, such as online game consoles, Wi-Fi enabled phones, and personal media players. This collaboration has led to the introduction of Home Network Defender, an Internet security service from Trend Micro that features Safe Web Surfing capabilities, parental controls, and user-activity reporting embedded on select Linksys by Cisco wireless-N home routers. Home Network Defender helps to detect and eradicate Web threats such as online fraud, scams, phishing schemes, predators and viruses before they enter the home network.

I have to admit that this is a great idea. I find that most users don’t do enough to protect themselves from online threats until something bad happens. So having protection like this at the edge of your home network and making it easy to implement pretty much guarntees that nothing bad will happen.

Watch for products with this technology to start appearing on store shelves shortly.

Obama’s Stimulus Bill Includes $7.2 Billion For Broadband Access

When President Barack Obama signed that $787 Billion dollar Stimulus bill earlier this week, it had one item that should interest tech loving Americans. $7.2 Billion will be used to ensure that every American has broadband access:

The bulk of the funds directed at broadband–$4.7 billion–will be distributed through a program run by the Commerce Department, while $2.5 billion will fall under the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Department, giving particular emphasis to broadband deployment in rural areas.

The final version of the bill maintains that projects funded by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration must adhere to nondiscrimination and openness principles. The funds must also be distributed before September 30, 2010, to projects that can be completed within two years.

This is great, but there is one downer to this bill:

The NTIA’s “Broadband Technology Opportunities Program” is intended to “award competitive grants to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits,” the bill says.

No part of the bill, however, defines the terms “broadband,” “unserved area,” or “underserved area.” The NTIA is instructed to work with the Federal Communications Commission to define these terms.

So, there still seems to be some work to do. Still, this is a major step forward for the US, assuming that it actually happens as planned.

Fujitsu Sells Hard Drive Biz To Toshiba

Fujitsu and Toshiba have announced today that they’ve signed a deal to transfer Fujitsu’s hard drive business to Toshiba:

Fujitsu will facilitate the transfer by bringing its HDD-related businesses and functions together in a new company. Toshiba will acquire about an 80 percent stake in this company and make it a Toshiba Group subsidiary. In order to promote a smooth transfer, Fujitsu will continue to hold a stake of under 20 percent in the new company for a certain period of time, after which it will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba.

Oh, there’s more. Toshiba then has plans for world domination to expand its market share by 2015. I guess that’s a reason for Seagate to be worried.

Expect this deal to close quickly.

Sirius/XM Lives….. For Now….

Liberty Media Corp who owns the Discovery Channel, QVC, among other assets, has purchased a $530 Million stake in Sirius/XM, which keeps the troubled satellite radio broadcaster alive and kicking for now. Sirius/XM CEO Mel Karmazin had this to say:

“We are pleased to have come to this agreement with Liberty Media, particularly in light of today’s challenging credit markets. Liberty’s investment is an important validation of what SIRIUS XM has already achieved and a vote of confidence in what we will achieve. This agreement enables Sirius XM to continue to develop the opportunities first outlined in the merger of Sirius and XM. By strengthening our capital structure and enhancing our financial flexibility, this investment allows us to continue providing the great content and innovative programming our subscribers know and love.”

Of course the fact that this deal will keep angry investors who were lining up to kick his ass boot him from his post at bay doesn’t factor into this of course.

So it looks like people who have these radios will be able to continue to listen to the Martha Stewart Channel, The Oprah Channel, and whatever else is on satellite radio for at least the short term.

Woman Sues Microsoft Over XP Downgrade…. Claims She Shouldn’t Have To Pay For An OS With “Problems”

From the “I can’t believe that it took this long to happen” department, a L.A. woman has decided to sue Microsoft because she has to pay for a downgrade from Vista to XP and wants class action status assigned to it:

Consumers have encountered numerous problems using the Vista operating system, and these problems have been widely publicized in various media outlets. As a result, many consumers would prefer to purchase a new computer pre-installed with the Windows XP operating system or at least not pre-installed with the Vista operating system.

However, Microsoft has used its market power to take advantage of consumer demand for the Windows XP operating system by requiring consumers to purchase computers pre-installed with the Vista operating system and to pay additional sums to ‘downgrade’ to the Windows XP operating system.

Okay. I can see her point. But she did miss something. I remember the days where you could downgrade at no charge to the previous OS if you bought Microsoft’s latest OS. That seems to have gone out the window (sorry for the pun) with Vista because so many OEMs such as Dell have started charging for downgrades to XP. I’d love to know if Microsoft makes any money off of those downgrades. I’m pretty sure that they’ll claim that they don’t, but I would think that OEMs wouldn’t chage for this if they wern’t passing on some sort of cost from Microsoft.

In any case, this is another legal headache that Microsoft doesn’t need right now. I’m guessing a few chairs are being thown in Redmond right about now.

Parallels Asking Beta Testers For Positive Reviews On Amazon And The Apple Store…. What’s Wrong With This Picture?

I just got a tip from a beta tester of Parallels who received an e-mail from the company asking him to submit a review of Parallels Desktop 4 on the Apple Store and Amazon.com:

Thank you for your recent comments and suggestions to the Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac Beta Program Survey. Your invaluable feedback helps us better meet the needs of our customers by improving future versions of our products.

Submit a Review
Why not take your feedback experience further by sharing your experiences with the online Apple community? By submitting a product review at Amazon.com or Apple Store (Online), potential users can take advantage of an unbiased online resource to assist them in making a purchasing decision.

While this isn’t the sort of thing that Belkin has been caught doing in the past, one has to wonder if this can be considered distasteful. Consider this: Parallels is trying to get people who have a positive bias towards Parallels desktop to write reviews that help to alter the perception of the software in the minds of end users. If you take into consideration that Parallels Desktop 4 has had some rather negative press on a variety of fronts that likely affects how the product is perceived by end users, this might be seen as an attempt as trying to spin doctor things in their favor.

What do you think? Is Parallels doing something wrong, or are they justified in doing this? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. Oh, if anybody from Parallels wants to comment about this, feel free to do so. I’d love to hear your side of the story.

Charter Communications Goes TITSUP…. Customers Not Impacted…. Yet….

This press release hit the wires late yesterday with some grim news. Charter Communications who is a major broadband provider in the US has filed for Bankruptcy Protection so that it can reduce its $21 Billion debt load to $8 Billion. However, they say that customers won’t be impacted by this:

“We are committed to continuing to provide our 5.5 million customers with quality cable, Internet and phone service, and through this agreement, we will be even better positioned to deliver the products and services our customers demand now and in the future,” says Charter CEO Neil Smit.

Yeah, sure.

I can tell you what’s going to happen next. Any plans for expansion won’t happen. People (likely tech people such as the people who support their infrastructure and the tech support types) are going to lose their jobs. Oh yeah, the service will start to suck.

If you’re on Charter, it’s time to bail to another provider. Otherwise bad things may happen to you.