Microsoft tries to stomp on VMWare

Microsoft doesn’t want you to use VMWare for virtualization of your information technology environment. At least, that is the message they are sending to the company I work for. For the last two years, when we’ve called for support, Microsoft’s Indian technicians seem confused and offer us conflicting information, wasting a great deal of time and causing us boundless frustration.

Today, we tried to call about a problem with DFS (distributed file system) - unfortunately the Microsoft technician noticed that the machine with a corrupt volume is virtualized and immediately went into a song and dance about it being VMWare and not being able to support the issue. Bear in mind that we had just dropped $500+ on the call. But Microsoft, in all its wisdom, has a policy that is more important that continuing to earn my company’s business.

Except as described in this article, Microsoft does not test or support Microsoft software running together with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. For Microsoft customers who do not have a Premier-level support agreement, Microsoft will require that the issue to be reproduced independently from the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. Where the issue is confirmed to be unrelated to the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software, Microsoft will support its software in a manner that is consistent with support provided when that software is not running together with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.

Two hours later, we’re still arguing with Microsoft about why they won’t support us. From my perspective, the company doesn’t want people using VMWare because they offer a competitive product (which I’m not interested in). Practically speaking, when Microsoft pretends that problems are caused by using VMWare when they are not, they are doing themselves a great disservice - offering me an incentive to spend time searching for alternative solutions to Microsoft’s entire line of products. Arrogance in customer service policy making never benefits the company making the policies.

Microsoft’s technicians did a very poor job of explaining the policy. We were put on hold multiple times without explanation. We were transferred multiple times and hung up on once. If this is the best Microsoft can do, they are doomed. Moving forward, I’ll be looking for ways to avoid doing business with the company. I’ve been a beta tester and long time supporter, but increasingly, Microsoft is out of touch with the people who keep it solvent. The company has become too bloated with bureaucracy to stay effective. Time for some spin offs.

VMWare’s virtualization product is better and more mature than Microsoft’s offering. And that is why we’ll continue to use it despite Microsoft’s attempts to strongarm us in a different direction.

Related information:

http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/ms_support_statement.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615