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VMware's in court again. Customer relationships rarely go this wrong

(www.theregister.com)
245 points rntn | 9 comments | 08 Sep 25 12:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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wkat4242 ◴[08 Sep 25 12:42 UTC] No.45167565[source]▶
The bigger issue is, if you're refusing to honour a contract as a vendor, not only do you risk a lawsuit like this one. But more importantly, who is ever going to sign up for another contract with you? You just proved it isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Unwritten terms like "valid until I decide to tear it up haha lol" are not generally appreciated by companies that depend on your stuff for their business. Of course you can extort your existing customers until they manage to move away but basically in the longer term you're suiciding your entire business.

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stego-tech ◴[08 Sep 25 12:51 UTC] No.45167646[source]▶
This.

I had to tell CurrentCo that I cannot reinstall their vSphere deployment at a client site because they bought a perpetual license, didn’t migrate it to Broadcom before they cut it off, and now we cannot simply go get the latest patch or appliance for that version number without inviting an audit and a sueball from Broadcom.

“Good thing Microsoft would never do that to us.”

Ha. Hahaha.

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ocdtrekkie ◴[08 Sep 25 13:08 UTC] No.45167791[source]▶
At least VMware isn't user-facing and it can be removed without riots. Imagine trying to tell someone they don't need Excel. I try to maintain at least plausible flexibility to go tell vendors to shove it, but if you have some enthusiastic fans of Microsoft Teams (they exist, who knew?)... Teams is one of those things that is inescapably tied to an incredibly deep well of platform lock-in.
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1. yndoendo ◴[08 Sep 25 14:49 UTC] No.45169025[source]▶
You don't need Excel. Have not used it in over 10 years.

Teams, that application IT is forcing me to use because they are a "Microsoft" house. Same application currently stating I'm on the _Calendar_ screen on the Task bar but actually in the _Chat_ screen; _Calendar_ bloatware feature and others have been removed and will always. Even when _Microsoft_ screws the user and force a reinstall of features after a Teams update.

Microsoft is a trillion dollar company that rejects quality user experience, QA, and is great at producing crap-ware. There is not a single product sell that I will spend a penny on. Still waiting on that 7+ year request to destroy | delete dangling pull request in Azure.

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2. dcminter ◴[08 Sep 25 15:33 UTC] No.45169593[source]▶
> You don't need Excel

This is the kind of thing that gets tech people a bad reputation. YOU don't need Excel. I don't need excel - but that guy? You have no idea what he needs and if the people he's supporting need (or just want) Excel to get their jobs done it is incredibly arrogant to tell him what he does or doesn't need.

Now, I've loathed Microsoft since the 90s, but that makes me a weird and special little petal - it doesn't count for squat in business.

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3. SoftTalker ◴[08 Sep 25 16:22 UTC] No.45170221[source]▶
Right, and even "that guy" might not need Excel but the second he opens up Libreoffice or Google Sheets and something doesn't work the way he's used to, he will say it's broken. He's not interested in learning how LibreOffice or Google does it, he's just trying to close a $5m deal. And he's not wrong.
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4. renmillar ◴[08 Sep 25 17:50 UTC] No.45171461{3}[source]▶
Honestly, these alternatives just don't stack up against Excel. Even setting aside the advanced stuff like complex data analysis and macros that some organizations rely on, Excel is simply more robust and user-friendly. Google Sheets feels like a toy in comparison.
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5. ghaff ◴[08 Sep 25 18:25 UTC] No.45171923{4}[source]▶
And a toy is all most users need. BUT (as has been the case with me at various points in my career), some need a lot more.
6. ocdtrekkie ◴[08 Sep 25 18:54 UTC] No.45172283[source]▶
Indeed, or in my case where I don't need Excel, but can't tell someone else they don't. Telling me in this discussion I don't need Excel is very much misreading the conversation.
7. snapcaster ◴[08 Sep 25 19:19 UTC] No.45172648[source]▶
Imagine an accounting person telling you: You don't need version control, have not used it in 10 years. This is a _shockingly_ arrogant and ignorant comment and if you actually believe this I fear for any organization in which you have significant power
8. kjs3 ◴[08 Sep 25 20:44 UTC] No.45173732[source]▶
Some of us deal with the 95% of users who don't give a steaming crap what some condescending IT droog thinks about Microsoft. Excel is not optional out here in the real world with the unwashed masses.
9. brianwawok ◴[08 Sep 25 23:41 UTC] No.45175571{3}[source]▶
And uhh you don’t need visual studio or pycharm. Just open notepad and learn how it works. It writes code.