Most of the original 12,000 beta testers thought they’d get a copy of Office 2003 in return for their participation. Instead, they got a cheesey clip-on radio.
Many Office 2003 beta testers are carping about the slap-in-the-face “gift” they received for testing. Most of the original 12,000 beta testers thought they’d get a copy of Office 2003 in return for their participation. Instead, they got a cheesey clip-on radio.
Office Watch reader KN: “I’ve been beta testing since Ashton-Tate owned dBase (shortly after the earth cooled), and the beta deal has ALWAYS included a copy of the finished product. That was true for Ashton-Tate, Borland, Parsons Technology, PowerBuilder, Mostly Mice, and yes, Microsoft. Sheeeeesh!”
Office Watch reader AD: “They should have warned participants that not everyone would receive the software, and set a standard for that level of participation. Pretty tacky to just take advantage of all 15,000 of us without letting us know they’d changed the rules. I wouldn’t feel so bad if they’d let us know this stuff up front.”
I’d guess that fewer than 5% of the “official” Office 2003 beta testers – the ones who were in the beta from the very beginning, at Microsoft’s invitation – received final shipping copies of Office 2003. The number is probably closer to 1%. That includes lots and lots of people who submitted (or at least claim they submitted) dozens of bug reports.
As for the ones who paid to be in the beta – the Marketing Beta, which Microsoft called “Microsoft Office System Beta 2 Kit 2003” – fuhgeddaboutit.
I guess Microsoft can’t afford to send beta testers a copy of the shrinkwrapped product. How much does it cost MS to create a Not-For-Resale copy of Office 2003 Enterprise? Maybe fifty cents? Add a buck for mailing and it only confirms my suspicions: Microsoft ran out of money when it was building Office 2003. How else can you explain the lack of “Help” inside Office 2003 dialog boxes?
