Gripe of the Day: Bad Business Practices

Today I'd like to gripe about two companies that have done what many other companies do as well and that is; they abandon their customers when their products fail. The companies of subject are Real, the authors of the Real Media Players and Rhapsody music, and Roxio, the authors of CreateCD.

Let's start with the Real company. Real created many different incarnations of its Real Player software in an effort to compete with and keep up with the many rival media player programs. The object of media player programs is to allow you to play, record, download, upload or burn music and videos from your computer. Like all other media players, when you install the Real Media Player, one of the first things it does is it tries to take all control of all media tasks conducted on your computer. This is a marketing tactic that forces all media files to automatically use that particular media player whenever you want to do something with a media file. The object is to get you so used to using their media player that you don't care to use another. During installation of the software, you are usually prompted to decided if you would like all media files to be associated with the media player you are installing. If you select the "yes" option, from then on, that particular media player will automatically launch whenever you conduct a task associated with media files. You can choose "Advanced Options" or some similar option that will be presented to you during the installation process and that will allow you to choose what type of files you would like to associate with that particular media player. Now-a-days, I always choose the "Advanced Options" and I only associate the files that I made with that particular player, with it. In other words, when the list of file types come up, if I'm installing a Real Media Player, I only choose to associate Real Player files with the Real Player. This way, When I use a file that was made with the Windows Media Player, the Windows Media Player is launched and not the Real Media Player. The only thing tricky about doing this is familiarizing yourself with which file types belong to which media player. It only takes a few minutes to figure it out so it's really not that big a hassle.

There are however some generic file types that will work with almost any media player. MP3, MP4 & AVI are some examples of generic file types. You should always save or record media files as one of the generic file types because if you save them as a type that is specifically associated with your media player, you could end up with the kind of problem that has led to me griping today. Basically, if you want to record some music to your computer and you save choose to save it as an RM (Real Media Player) file as opposed to a generic file type such as MP3, the Real Media Player then places a code on that file that makes it uniquely its own. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the file will be able to be played using another media player or even that it will be able to be played on a CD that you record it to. The music might not even be able to be played on any portable digital music player devices UNLESS, that device is made by the Real company. You see the "gotcha" in this?

A few years ago, that's how the Real company took advantage of all of its customers who purchased the Real Jukebox program. The program saved files as RMX files which not only are not compatible with any other media player but they can't be played on most cd players or mp3 players. I, like many other fools, thought it was such a great program that I saved tons of music on my computer in the RMX format, thinking I was safeguarding all of the music I had purchased for future use. Everything was great until the day came when my car was stolen and I had all of my cd's in the trunk because I had been at a friend's house for a party. I didn't panic because I had all of my music saved on my computer so I could just burn new copies of my cd's - NOT!! That's when I learned that RMX files were only good for playing on my computer using the Real Jukebox program. Still, I tried not to panic because I was computer literate enough to know that media files could be converted into other formats. I intended to convert my RMX files into the more useful MP3 format so I searched high and low for a converter program that could accomplish this task. What I found was an entire community of lost individuals just like me who were looking for the same thing. What we all found was that, such a program does not exist! Unlike the Windows Media Player and other media player programs, the Real company had locked their file coding down so tight that no one could develop a program to convert them and the Real company didn't care to do it their selves. Everyone who had purchase the Real Jukebox, saved their music in RMX format and then found their selves in a situation where they needed to convert them; were left with the choice of either re-purchasing all of the music they lost or reinstalling all of it in a new format, if they still had the actual CD's.

For years, customers of the Real company's software having begging for something to help them but does the Real company care? NO! You already bought the program so they got what they wanted - your money - you're now on your own pal.

Roxio is guilty of the very same thing but it's even more egregious with them because of the nature of the software. Roxio created a program called Create CD5 which was one in a series of such programs, designed to provide a means of backing up important documents and performing tasks with media such as; burning music and video CD's. What happened with the Roxio program was that it formatted every disc used to back-up document or record media, into the Roxio format. Mind you, this program backed up important system files and information from your computer so that in the event that your computer crashed, you could recover your data. It turns out that there were numerous flaws with the program that caused Windows to become unstable and crash (blue screen of death) often. The flaws in the Roxio program was so bad that when Microsoft made Windows XP, they built in an automatic exclusion that prevents Crate CD5 formatted disks from running on your computer. So if you had a computer with Windows 98 or ME on it and it caught a virus or some other unfixable problem and you bought a new system, you could not recover your IMPORTANT data to use on your new system.

For a short while, Roxio had provided a free patch via their site that was supposed to correct the problem and allow your discs to run on newer systems but for some non-disclosed reason, they pulled the patch and even removed the program from their list of Roxio programs on their support sites. It's as if they decided to deny that the program ever existed!! What's the deal?! The deal is, the Roxio company is more interested in you buying yet another piece of their software, to replace the worthless one, than they are in helping you correct their problem.

These are examples of what's wrong with corporate America today. There is no accountability to the costumers when the company does wrong and because of current marketing practices (I intend to gripe about marketers soon), the push is always forward even when it is clear that a pause is needed to clean up the destruction being left in the company's wake. These companies are only interested in the bottom line and they don't care what they have to do to ensure that those figures don't turn red. They, by their own insensitive ways, have contributed to what will ultimately be their end: the freeware, shareware, pirated and open source software movement. Young software developers who have grown up dealing with the crap that the big players have been feeding us for so long, are rebelling. They are ripping codes and developing software that is actually functional, compatible and capable of being freely advanced to keep up with the pace of new technology. The software rebellion is very similar to what the construction industry was forced to come to terms with as a result of years of customer abuse. Customers started doing their own work on their homes, taking renovation classes and there was an influx in home-improvement shows as a result. The large construction contractors were relegated to new home and commercial construction jobs which meant less work and therefore, the death or consolidation of many large companies.

I have been so jaded by my experiences with software that I have purchased that I now go out of my way to find freeware or shareware options before considering purchasing software from one of the big name because they are too concerned with controlling their markets. Their need for control causes them to make software that has unreasonable limitations and lack the adaptability needed in today's high-tech environment.

I often shop for my software at CNET no-a-days because they provide tons of freeware options that I can experiment with before deciding to buy anything. I have often found that the free stuff is better. Anywho, I'm vented.