Microsoft Corp will inject ú12m into the support of Windows95 in the UK in the first year following its release. But the money will be spent on partners Digital Equipment Corp, ICL Sorbus Ltd, Unisys Corp, Stream International Inc and Professional Support Centre Ltd support systems for the product. They, along with a token effort from Microsoft, which appears to be acknowledging that its strengths are in software development and marketing and not in customer support, will be providing support for the flagship operating system to ship in August, says David Svensen, managing director of Microsoft in the UK. He also said the company is seriously considering quarterly upgrades of the operating system as it gears up for the Windows95 jihad, as he referred to the launch. Customers will dial a single Microsoft number anywhere in the UK, and after screening, they will be diverted to one of the partners of the Desktop Support team, as they are known, seamlessly. Microsoft is already trying such a scheme with its M icrosoft Office suite. Office customers calling from the UK have been routed to a third-party in the US for the price of the UK call. The ú12m will be spent on setting up the call distribution and in other, as yet, unspecified areas. Microsoft will provide support free for the first 90 days, counted from the initial support call. It aims to create a kind of free market of support packages, and it will be up to the individual partners how little or much they provide above a basic minimum, and for what price. A third party will be paid by Microsoft to monitor the standards of the packages, which raises the question of who will monitor the monitor – presumably Microsoft. Svensen said he does not envisage the day when the entire support operation is farmed out to third parties, but Tony Ettlinger, director of Microsoft product support services, added that the company won’t handle many calls at first. Svensen would not reveal whether the company is saving money by outsourcing the support, but instead emphasised the spreading of the risk by doing it this way. At the 60-day stage of the warranty, customers will be sent a mailshot by Microsoft detailing the support packages offered by the support team. When a user calls the line, after being screened by Microsoft, the caller will be greeted by whichever partner it has been put through to, but that partner will answer as Microsoft, according to Howard Sarna, commercial chief executive at Professional Support Centre, so it is hard to see how the user will know which service is for them. Ettlinger said that the user will have the opportunity to find out who they are talking to. Microsoft said that it will attempt to build up an accord between customer and the support supplier by putting them back to the same company whenever possible, but that would be difficult if the company’s identity is kept secret. Neil Allpress, director of desktop services at ICL Sorbus, said this agreement is entirely separate from the Edge, the service package the company announced recently (CI No 2,658).
