Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 23:18:12 +0000 From: James Raynard <james@jraynard.demon.co.uk> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Lecturer wins financial settlement from Microsoft UK Message-ID: <19971104231812.21538@jraynard.demon.co.uk>
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[From the current edition of "Computer Weekly"] A part-time lecturer in safety-critical systems from Worcester wrung an out-of-court settlement from the software giant after claiming that the Windows 95 upgrade he purchased was not "fit for purpose" under the 1979 Sale of Goods Act. Mike Foster bought an academic version of Windows 95, but when he installed the upgrade he found he was unable to run Word or load Lotus Smartsuite. He claimed it took Microsoft a week to inform him of Service Pack error fixes, and when 14 disks of fixes arrived, it reinforced his view that the upgrade was not fit for purpose. Foster said the out-of-court settlement of about 500UKP would enable him to get a specialist to upgrade his machine to Windows 95 OSR Version 2 or Windows 98. He had sued on the grounds that the purchase price compensation offered by Microsoft was insufficent, claiming a precedent in St Albans council's 1994 court case against ICL over a faulty poll tax system. Commenting on his victory, Foster said he was pleased to have won, but wished the victor had been a major company with the time and resources to nail Microsoft down. "It's no use Microsoft just offering the refund price," he said. "There is no reliable alternative to Windows 95 for PCs and Microsoft should make it robust and reliable." He added that the company had a worrying lack of consumer focus. "Even much-maligned companies such as British Gas have timescales for responding to customer complaints. Microsoft UK has none." [Interestingly, there are quite a few letters in this edition complaining about lack of choice in operating systems. Unfortunately, the readership consists of IT professionals, and when did anyone listen to us? :-(] -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland. james@jraynard.demon.co.uk http://www.freebsd.org/~jraynard/
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