A giant BOO and HISS to Sony…first we have the whole DRM thing, which soured me greatly. Okay, I’m prepared to be big about this and forgive them because they backed off and made retribution. Stupid mistake on their part, but still, I have always liked their hardware. Had a Sony VAIO laptop for several years. I’ve always reccomended Sony laptops for folks that want to buy a PC platform.
But now, spending money on Sony–not so much.
I’m reading Gizmodo and ogling all the new gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show, this item caught my eye.
It’s perfect, I think – you can buy e-books, you can download HTML files and PDFs (perfect for reading fic). So I try to go to the Connect Store to see if I can find out more info (e.g., what it’s going to cost, when it will be available, etc.
This is what I get:
Our Apologies
We appreciate your interest in the Connect music store, but our store currently only works with Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. You don’t seem to be using that particular browser at the moment, so, unfortunately, we’ll have to part ways until we support the browser you’re currently using or you upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer. Please click the Download link below if you’d like to upgrade now.
Thank your for your interest in the Connect music store!
Uh, so sorry – I don’t use IE for anything but testing stuff at work. My primary browser on a PC is Firefox. My primary browser on a Mac is Safari. So you won’t let me shop, huh? Well, then SO SORRY back atcha, no Sony products for this techie.
ETA:
Sony Unveils Reader
As we noted over the holiday break, 2006 will bring the next wave of e-reading devices in America, this time based on a variety of “electronic ink” technologies that provide much improved text resolution and draw very little battery power. For now, everything about these devices–including the hardware pricing, and availability and pricing of files for downloading–is still at least a few generations away from anything as seductive or seamless as iTunes/iPod. But that won’t stop the media and the manufacturers from making the reference at every turn, starting with today’s official announcement of Sony’s new e-reader.
(In the same vein, it’s ironic/funny that Sony’s web-based store for selling files, Connect, says that it doesn’t support Macs at all, and it won’t use Firefox or Safari or any browser besides Internet Explorer. They’ll never emulate iTunes with that strategy!)
Sony’s official release doesn’t offer anything that wasn’t already in BusinessWeek’s report last week. USA Today says Sony expects to have only about 1,000 titles available from Connect when the device launches, and there is still no indication of whether downloads will be priced to reflect how little most consumers value electronic book files (so we presume that means they won’t).
Comment
Wow, how snotty and rude does *that* sound?
Comment
I *know*!!
That was my biggest beef – the tone of the message. Sheesh!
Comment
You have GOT to write a letter to the company president pointing out that their website has driven away not only a potential customer, but the word-of-mouth advertising that you would have given to your professional peers, who would also have made good customers.
“I’m too sexy for your computer” costs sales, period. Make sure they know they’ve lost you.
… and then look for one of those buggers on ebay if you really want one. :>
Comment
Definitely writing a letter to Sony. They have no idea how much I pimp products when I really like them.
I’ve already submitted a modified version of my post to Slashdot.
Comment
That’s very poor customer relations. You really need to send them an email pointing out that not only is it stupid not to support other browsers, it’s stupid to be so obnoxious about not supporting other browsers. And a gentle ackonowledgement that you’re a techie that talks a lot to other techies would not be out of place.
Comment
Totally horrific customer service! Planning to send them a detailed letter about how they just lost a customer and how they lost my potential fabulous word-of-mouth.
Comment
Holy.
Fuck.
Comment
No shit. My original thought was WTF? My second thought was – that’s just DUM, dumb!
Comment
Well. That certainly bears out several of the assertions that Sony’s DRM was all about Apple and not so much about, you know, piracy – one of the people who wrote about the DRM originally quoted something from Sony’s little message about how if you didn’t like this please to let Apple know blah blah.
And so I’m not really amazed at the incredibly poor customer service skills this is showing. Sony’s in bed big time with M$ and doesn’t care who knows it?
I have to see if this is on Slashdot. You have to tell Slashdot! And C|NET!
Comment
Seriously! I checked Slashdot – it’s not there yet.
http://slashdot.org/submit.pl – really! Do it!
Comment
Whee – I hadn’t thought about Slashdot – submitted thanks to you!
And yeah, what a freakin’ stupid move on their part. Not only blocking ANY Mac users, but PC users who want to use alternate browsers.
I buy many hundreds of dollars a year in tech gear and such – none of it will be Sony’s!
Comment
yeesh … is it too soon to hope for the pendulum to start swinging back to actual concern / service for, ya know, customers?
While it’s a little hard to determine the chicken and the egg, I do think some of the problems with the current retail etc. environment has to do with the past decade or so of consumers insisting that the most important value to them was price. Now most places don’t bother to price competatively much of the time, but no longer have any customer service support base because it’s not “important…”
Gee, I think this is my second or third time ranting on this topic this year…
Comment
Sony vs. Apple
Sony’s been trying to beat Apple for a while now (anyone remember the “iPod killer?” No? Me neither). What they have done is try to start their own proprietary system, software, and so forth, relying on their own music, of course, but they’re so far behind the curve it’s pitiful. They must learn the Microsoft lesson: when someone else has 95% of the market share, you play by their rules, or resign yourself to marginality. You’d think the creators of Betamax would know this already, but no…
Comment
Re: Sony vs. Apple
D’oh!! I’d totally forgotten that it was Sony that had Betamax.
Dudes really need to stop and think.