The problem (I think) is the company
Abstract: I am doing a project that has to be done
in QuarkXpress. Because of their lousy licensing requirements I needed to buy a
seperate mobile license for my laptop. It took three tries to buy that license.
After three calls I was able to purchase a QuarkXpress mobile license. It was
almost more trouble than it was worth.
Call one, I dug through Quark's website and found
the 800 number they listed for mobile licensing. I called the number and was
connected to a lengthy list of phone options. Finally I heard the option for
mobile license purchasing (tip, it is five) and was connected, connected to a
busy signal.
Call two, after cooling off I
called again. Same phone tree, option five. This time I was placed on hold. I
waited and waited then the canned music stopped. "Hello, hello," I said. I was
hung up on!
Call three, same phone tree,
placed on hold, same canned music; then a voice. The voice had a heavy Indian
accent. It sounded like chaos in the background. A lot of loud Indian accents
were in the background. Hello Bangalore!
The
gentleman on the phone had a hard time understanding me at times. It took about
30 minutes from dial-up to hang-up.
In my
opinion these were phone calls that never should have been made. If the music
industry were like this I would have to buy a copy of a CD for every stereo I
might play it on. These draconian licensing procedures, and the requirement to
buy multiple licenses to do installs in computers you own (when you are only
going to be using one install at a a time,) may lead to some more short term
revenue. In the long term it drives customers away. This is the best thing
these companies could do to spur open source
development.
All that said, with all the
money I have spent on their products, in my opinion there is no excuse for
Quark's lousy customer service. I will use InDesign when I can!
Posted: Sat
- December
20, 2003 at 09:24 AM