Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 5th Feb 2007 21:43 UTC, submitted by diegocg
"Microsoft quietly raised last week its per-incident support prices across the board for Windows and Office. Support for Windows XP and Windows Vista now costs USD 59 per incident. Prior to the Vista launch, the per-incident support price for Windows was USD 39. Vista users get their first 90 days of support for no charge. Support for Office XP and Office 2007 now goes for USD 49 per incident, compared to USD 35 per incident prior to the January 30 Windows Vista/Office 2007 retail launch. Office 2007 users also get their first 90 days of support for free."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
"This way we can make even more money by selling a defective product."
I was waiting for a comment like this to appear on this thread, lo and behold it was the second one.
MS doesn't make any money from their consumer level support; it's a huge cost center for them and they actually lose money every time they answer a support call which is why they push their online no cost support options so hard (newsgroups, KB's, etc).
When I worked in PSS back in '02, average cost per call was over 500 bucks (factor in employee salary, infrastructure costs, etc and it shouldn't be hard to see why).
The OEM's are worthless and usually push off calls to MS in the end anyways. Regardless, that 60 bucks guarantees you a solution, or you get a refund. Turns out to be a legitimate bug? Refund.
*yawn*