Microsoft

I just came across Louis Rossman’s Video and it got me wondering: where does this end? As some background: Microsoft sold Office 2019 to Mac users with a perpetual license. Presumably there is some certificate that authorizes Office and allows it to function. Absent a valid license, I assume Office works in some kind of read-only mode. Finally, as with all certificates, there is an expiration set for some 5 years after issuance.

What has happened here is the certificate expired and now Office 2019 for Mac no longer works. Microsoft could fix this cheaply by just renewing the certificate. They have the infrastructure and delivery mechanisms already. All they need to do is have a few engineers work on this for at most a few sprints. Instead they just let the certificates expire. I would be shocked if the total cost of renewing the certificates exceeded $100,000. But they don’t even put that much value into even customer good-will?

So then I wonder: what of their products will suffer the same fate? How often do I need to consider whether they’ll just stop supporting something they previously sold with “perpetual licensing” which results in something I bought refusing to work? To be clear: I don’t think they’ll do this with Windows. That would be insane. It would quite possibly bankrupt Microsoft. But it does show a level of disregard for their customers that I find concerning.

Anyway, they seem to keep racking up L’s lately. That’ll probably continue until customer morale improves.

I also wonder how much I should generalize this idea: if a company doesn’t make money from me, they’ll just not care about things I bought from them. Should I just generalize this to all companies where I have no subscription? Probably. Thanks I hate it.