[COMP] Re: Windows 2000

Lately I've been thinking about how Microsoft
charges for their beta CD's.  What was it last 
time, $50 or something?  So people were paying 
$50 for bug-riddled software which will intentionally 
cease to function after a few months.


For the time and effort they have contributed by 
using this unstable beta software and sending bug 
reports to Microsoft, the beta testers get ... (drum roll) ...
absolutely nothing!  Not even a discount offer for 
the release version (is this true?)

I don't understand why people are paying Microsoft
to do their beta testing for them.  Some thoughts:

*    By charging people to beta test, isn't Microsoft
    creating a much smaller pool of beta testers?  
    If the software was available free (such as on the 
    internet or on those MSN CD's), I think there would 
    be *alot* more people testing it.

*    With a smaller pool of beta testers, less bugs
    will be discovered.   So the software is going ship 
    with more bugs.  

What does all of this say about Microsoft's attitude 
toward quality control?  


--
Mark 



-----Original Message-----
#From: John Madden <weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: computers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <computers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, March 20, 2000 6:32 PM
Subject: [COMP] Re: Windows 2000


>> Legal?  perhaps but all MS would have to do is "modify"  the EULA for
those
>> copies and they'd be illegal.
>
>Yeah, and we know they've never done *that* before... :)
>




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