[Venue Pro General] MJCS:
Grrrrr

Initial Email sent to Steve Ballmer

Mr. Ballmer:

It is not often that I get really pissed off but when I do it is usually when a company falsely advertises their product. I purchased a Dell Venue Pro over a year ago on launch day at the Mission Viejo Microsoft Store. I was one of the first there in line to get one. I got this because I liked the large screen, it had gorilla glass, a portrait keyboard, and it had a compass built in. Now Dell is saying on Twitter that “Dell will not be providing compass support for the #dellvenuepro” (this was from today by @LionelatDell). I have contacted Dell Executive Support and told them how to simply fix the problem as I found out that they renamed their compass driver during the mango update. See I am a developer and I built a test application during the beta period to try out the compass. It was working just fine during the beta period. Then Dell removed the feature with the full release of Mango.

I love my Dell Venue Pro but I absolutely HATE the way that Dell has treated me over the last few months. Dell should be ashamed and pressured to release a simple cab.pks update that fixes this. I am ready to seek legal action against Dell if I can’t get this resolved by the end of the year. I am not the only one that is angry about this. I hope that you can help me resolve this simple issue.

Mitchell J. Skurnik

Developer

Email response

From: Microsoft GetHelp

Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 9:17 AM

Cc: GetHelp - Customer and Partner Advocacy Team - US

Subject: GetHelp | 10415277 | Mitchell Skurnik | able to Use Compass Application [fc]#CaseID:10415277-EmailID:1#

Hello Mr. Skurnik,

I have received your //GetHelp escalation regarding the issue you are having using the compass application on your Dell Venue Pro. I understand that this can be extremely frustrating and inconvenient and want you to rest assured that I will do everything I can to provide you with the most accurate and up to date information. After reading through your submission details, I am having difficulty understanding Microsoft’s role in your issue. I see that Dell has informed their customer’s that they will no longer be supporting the compass application on the Dell Venue Pro. I also understand that you contact Dell support to tell them how they can fix the problem. Despite this, Dell has decided not to support the compass on Mango.

That being said, I want to be sure you understand that Dell is an Independent Software/Hardware vendor and makes their own decisions on what to develop/support on Microsoft platforms. Microsoft has no influence whatsoever on the business decisions that Dell makes with their products. The fact that Dell has made the decision to not support the compass app on Mango is solely their decision.

I would like to ask you if there is a more specific ask that you would like Microsoft to look into. If not, there is very little that Microsoft can do in this situation. I will wait for your response. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Thank you,

I send them a reply saying the Dell said Microsoft was working on a fix

Hello Mr. Skurnik,

Unfortunately I have no visibility into this…do you happen to have a case number or contact that you were working with at Dell? Do you have any communications (email, etc.) between you and Dell that I could review to get abreast of the communications you refer to between Microsoft and Dell?

Thank you,

I forward them the only email I got from them. I was told verbally that Microsoft would fix this (Dell said this)

Thank you Mr. Skurnik,

After reading through the thread you provided me of the communication you had with Dell, I do not see anywhere that says Dell is working with Microsoft in any way regarding this issue. The only thing I see is that they were going to forward your complaint to Microsoft…which is most likely how I received your escalation.

That being said, there is nothing that we can do at this point to influence or change the decision Dell has made to not support the compass app on Mango. The only thing I could suggest is to try and follow up with Dell Support again and see if they would be willing to work with you and have you assist them in developing a version of the application that is supported on Mango.

I do wish there was more I could do to help you, but unfortunately this lies with Dell. Is there any other items I can address for you at this time?

Thank you,