Editorial - Sony Charges to Remove Crapware from Vaios
by , 2:25 PM EDT, March 21st, 2008
Sony is charging customers to remove trialware and other unwanted software from their new Vaio TZ notebook computers. It's hardly surprising that the MacBook Air is selling so well.
Others have dubbed it crapware. It's all that extra stuff that's installed on a new PC that no one wants. But the vendor receives a little bit of money that offsets the ultra-slim profit margins in the cut-throat PC industry. It just goes to show how much baggage the PC industry has acquired
Here's a screen shot from the CTO page for the VGN-TZ2000:
Last year, Dell announced that based on customer feedback, they would make the trialware a configuration option for the customer.
Sony, however, has decided to charge the customer US$50 to have it removed before shipment. The option is called "Fresh Start," trademarked no less. And to get that option, the user must spend an additional US$100 to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium to Vista Business. Total cost: $150.00.
Apple notebook computers are taking the world by storm, contributing to ever increasing market share for Apple, and daily make headline news as celebrities like Charlie Rose and Martha Stewart rave about their new MacBook Air.
One has to wonder what Sony is thinking. Perhaps they need some executives like Steve Jobs to bang some heads.
From a purely money-based business perspective I can understand this. I would imagine that at least $50 of the profit on a new PC would be from bundled software. It still sucks though and good business means making your customers happy, which this won't.
Macs on the other hand are kind of the other way around; Apple off minimal amounts (to say the least) to bundle things like OmniOutliner Pro. The biggest incentive for third parties is the free promotion/delivery and good possibility of upgrade revenue. The point is that Apple really don't make a penny from third party software bundling, just good will.
Also to note is that Apple allow you to choose which third party apps you do and don't want to install during a re-install where "recovery disks" for PCs usually don't.
CloseViewName:JonGlPosts: 93Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:09 pmSubject:
Quote
Jonkun227 wrote: At least phrase it the other way around: "For $150 less you can get this system preconfigured with trial software that you might enjoy!"
And which, if you decide you don't enjoy, will likely turn your computer into a paper weight, when you try to remove any of it--and all of it, of course, being time-limited, so that you _will_ want to remove it... Yup... Wonderful option!
Why anyone would buy anything made by Sony? Spyware on music CDs, crapware on computers, products seemingly designed to *not* work with Macs... makes you wonder what little surprises are lurking in the Blu-Ray firmware.
Sony has screwed up so much with customer relations. Good thing I refuse to purchase crappy prebuilt computers, anyway. Even with an extended warranty, they're more likely to break than one built from retail parts.
I think it would be nice if a pc manufacturer could make themselves stand out by not bundling software and putting the customer first. Wouldn't that be a good sales gimmick? maybe they would even be able to charge a couple of extra bucks for it.
But to make it optional is like a cab driver saying "and for 5 bucks more i won't turn on my radio to an offensive station at high volume for the duration of your ride"
Apple's done a good job differentiating their product, no doubt about that, and they have a nice following because of it. The article only mentions it in passing, but the reason the PC industry is so cut-throat is because of the amount of competition. Competition means lower prices for PC consumers. Even if you had to pay for the bundle to be removed, I'd venture to say that you'd still be getting better hardware bang for your buck. You don't get the shiny OS and shiny case, but you also don't get slapped with paying the relatively huge Apple margins.
Sony was selling Vista Business on their 11.1 inch mini laptops that were incapable of running that slug of an OS at an acceptable level.
Sony then discontinued XP support on any of their newer laptops.
That meant you had to pay about 2 or 3 thousand bucks to find one that could run Vista Business without choking.
Now it seems Sony has found God and now offers XP as a downgrade on all of the newer models.
Quel surprise!
Plus the 11.1 Vaio's broke at astonishing rate,requiring new motherboards @699 bucks if out of warranty.
And to top it off ,Sony has only one repair center and will not sell any repair parts to 3rd party repair shops.
They also have no field service,which means it mail order time folks.
They are slick looking machines ,with a lousy support network.
Dell,Lenovo and HP are light years a head in terms of business support .
CloseViewName:Guest Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:58 pmSubject:
haha..too funny. i purchased a Vaio laptop last year installed with Vista buisness and it never came with any cd's or software to register the outlook suite.
so guess what i'm running now? i took Sony's offer to downgrade the Vaio to XP Professional since Vista is crap.
$9 for shipping and I'm much happier.
until I get a Mac
ONE usb port is enough right? or how about the invisible CD drive with the Mac Air? or the Unremoveable battery? I love MACS ::sarcasm:: its great to see MACS using a PC based processor. =] PC for the win. again.
"But the vendor receives a little bit of money that offsets the ultra-slim profit margins in the cut-throat PC industry. It just goes to show how much baggage the PC industry has acquired "
I guess they could have gotten around this by implementing a completely closed monopoly like Apple. Not too many "Mac clones" out there.
If you actually look at the numbers, Sony's doing a good thing.
Do you really think Dell doesn't factor in the loss in trialware profit and pass that cost on to the consumer?
Both Sony and Dell will continue to make the same amount of money, and the customer pays the same amount of money on average, but Sony gives the customer a choice.
Critics of this move are the same people unable to see beyond "ONE DAY ONLY 50% OFF!" sales, and recognize it as "0.14% MORE EXPENSIVE 364 DAYS PER YEAR!"
"But the vendor receives a little bit of money that offsets the ultra-slim profit margins in the cut-throat PC industry. It just goes to show how much baggage the PC industry has acquired "
I guess they could have gotten around this by implementing a completely closed monopoly like Apple. Not too many "Mac clones" out there.
CloseViewName:Guest Fri Mar 21, 2008 5:13 pmSubject:
I agree that Sony is clueless.
On the subject of Apple is better because they don't add crapware, I think that since you are paying more for a Mac you deserve less crapware than on a PC.
Actually, from a purely money standpoint, this is horrible business sense. Customers are far more likely to buy from a company they like and trust. Sony is alienating their customers with stuff like this. Plus, this kind of product completely betrays the basic concept of a computer, and consumers DO get that.
Companies underestimate consumers far too often in thinking that they will either "have no choice" and buy or will be too casual to care. In actuality, this kind of thing really pisses even the average consumer off.
People can tell when a company truly believes in their products, and when they're just trying to make money. The latter always gives the customer the impression that they're getting screwed.
When will companies, speculators, and commentors realize that the best way to be economically successful is to focus on good products first and money second? That good sense is good business sense?
I recently purchased a Blackberry Curve from AT&T and it was so loaded with crapware that it was practically useless. I cleaned all the vender garbage off of it thanks to Blackberry forums and it has worked flawlessly since. AT&T must have known it was a big problem but were clueless how to advise me to get it working. Go figure. My PC's all work great because I build my own and load a clean copy of Windows on them.
I had such a bad experience with my first Viao that had it not been for the convenience of buying it in an airport (that I travel through often) I would never have purchased a second one. I've had it for about 9 months now and so far the hard drive hasn't crashed - an improvement over the first. But the keyboard is crappy, keys are not aligned, and it just doesn't compare ergonomically with Dell or IBM.
Ppft... no wonder the Windows side of computer retail is eating itself alive from the inside. Giving customers a required annoyance with their several hundred (or more) dollar investment is a heck of a way to lose customer confidence. Ironically, Sony probably makes more profit from the "Fresh Start" gimmick than they do by 3rd party crapperware licensing.
Quote
houltmac wrote: Macs on the other hand are kind of the other way around; Apple off minimal amounts (to say the least) to bundle things like OmniOutliner Pro.
Yes, and the thing about that is that most people are never even aware of those little inclusions, until they start digging around in the Apps folder. The key difference is that Apple never lets them get in the way, or fight for dominance of your machine (such as media players do on Windows). And if you don't want the apps? Just chuck 'em in the trash: end of story.
Last edited by xmattingly on Fri Mar 21, 2008 5:41 pm; edited 1 time in total Reply | Quote
This does not change anything. All of the big OEM PC manufacturers add crapware, ever since the dawn of AOL. Crapware offsets their cost a bit in a highly competitive commodity market where only Apple differentiates themselves, thus their ability to demand higher prices. If you wanna pay to remove it, so be it, some people spend boatloads on bottled water, let people blow their money as they see fit.
Even without crapware, there are still OS options that are just not needed, take up resources and need to be removed. So just format and re-install the OS. It does not take much time. I've done it to every PC I've owned, even my Mac. By doing so, you are guaranteed a clean slate and optimal performance.
This does not change anything. All of the big OEM PC manufacturers add crapware, ever since the dawn of AOL. Crapware offsets their cost a bit in a highly competitive commodity market where only Apple differentiates themselves, thus their ability to demand higher prices. If you wanna pay to remove it, so be it, some people spend boatloads on bottled water, let people blow their money as they see fit.
Even without crapware, there are still OS options that are just not needed, take up resources and need to be removed. So just format and re-install the OS. It does not take much time. I've done it to every PC I've owned, even my Mac. By doing so, you are guaranteed a clean slate and optimal performance.
Anonymous wrote: Even without crapware, there are still OS options that are just not needed, take up resources and need to be removed. So just format and re-install the OS. It does not take much time. I've done it to every PC I've owned, even my Mac. By doing so, you are guaranteed a clean slate and optimal performance.
I would agree, but as I said before it's not always possible. Many crapware ridden PCs come with "restore disks" which install all the crapware also. Besides, my mom shouldn't need to do that.
There is a lot of broken logic in this thread. If PC guys aren't differentiating themselves then who's fault is that? Are Apple really charging a premium? And on and on it goes. These are all larger topics than the one being discussed, but at the end of the day it's a real shame someone feels they have to do this. It reminds me of those "you wouldn't steal a car" ads on DVDs that basically accuse the CUSTOMER of being a thief.
Sony has already announced that they're dropping the $50 charge; no word yet on whether they can find a way to make the process work without the upgrade to Vista Business
I bought an additional fresh retail copy of Vista Business for my Sony VAIO to end run the absolute mess of garbage on my new PC. It did take some time to locate the needed drivers, but I now have a VAIO that works great and has the software I want. All the hardware works as it should. At first this removed the "OEM" portion of the product code. A complete save, format and restore and the "OEM" license appeared.
When I call the Sony support center, they had a siezure, from threatening legal action to voidin the entire warranty.
Each and every Sony rep had a "Fixed" point of empowerment to "help" the customer and then just quit. From TV's to computers, I used to be a big Sony consumer, but never again. When you read about the number TVs they have to recall for a design flaw, but keep it a secret unless you use exactly the right word to describe the problem.
I kept careful notes of my Sony dealings. I'm going to write a book. It will be a best seller.
For years Sony has taken advantage of its customers, with inclusions of ROOTKITS that EASEDROP on what their comsumers are doing (ILLEAGALY) to the point that it (ROOTKIT) threatened the US Department of Defenses computer network as well as millions of non-Sony users. All you had to do was play a CD from CBS/SONY MUSIC on your computer and you had loaded a ROGUE program that tracked your use of that music and connected to Sony. Kinda of sounds like Microsoft's habit of telling you that you DO NOT have the RIGHT to play music you have stored on YOUR computer.
For years MS has been the Biggest purveyer of BLOATWARE, morphing to TRACKWARE, soon to be RENTWARE, and don't forget the almighty EULA. Used to be that you could DELEATE things that you did not desire to be gobbling up YOUR hard drive, but the major conglonerates think that THEY have the RIGHT to OCCUPY vast amounts or the owners hard drive real estate.
SQUATERS, that is all they are, and times will eventually come around to bite them in the EULA. I hope someone like GOOGLE, with MEGA-TERRA-BYTES, will SUE MS, SONY and anyone else that SQUATS IN or ON any real estate that they do not OWN, and only a large payoff in penalties may tide the practice of the large corporations that think they are above the law.
A good first step would be a OWNERS EULA RIGHTS LAW, that Sellers and Resellers automatically agree to by having their products eligible for resale. Except you will only be able to RENT a computer, OS, and other programs then. I see a trend toward ON-LINE ONLY PROGRAMING, as MS has already hinted to in future versions of their products.
Guest wrote: crapware is annoying but easy to remove, rather have crapware than a laptop with ONE USB port...
macs are useless as everyone knows (well except for deluded mac users)...
I used to make fun of them back in the day, until about four years ago a co-worker showed me his slick new (well, new at the time) 17" PowerBook with whatever OS X was current at the time. I knew it was just a matter of time.
I used to be a Windows developer, worked with the Microsoft Foundation Class Library a LOT in my Visual C++ days. Nowadays, I'm a web app developer. But my loyalties had been with Microsoft for many years.
Then my time came, and I bought a little white 13" MacBook for my daughter (ha, right!) in late 2006. I fell in love with it, so I bought a 17" MacBook Pro for myself toward Christmas of 2006, initially for recording music.
These days, I never touch my very nice HP Pavilion 15.5" notebook any longer. The HP is a great notebook, and it is running XP. But I never, ever use it. I have everything I need on the MacBook Pro. My daughter uses the HP notebook occasionally to play Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, because the Mac port of that game sucks raw eggs. But that's the only use it gets.
I haven't looked lately, but if history is any indication, the Sony Vaio in question is probably still cheaper than a similarly outfitted Mac notebook, even WITH the $150 you'd pay for this option. And Sony's are among the more expensive notebooks out there. You may argue that Apple doesn't nickle and dime you, but that's only because their systems come with a hefty margin built in. Another way of looking at this is Windows laptop manufacturers give you the option of getting good hardware at prices that make even second-hand Macs look expensive. Since I can remove the trialware myself, I'll choose that option, thankyou very much.
Let me know when you can get a good Mac laptop, brand new, for $450. I won't be holding my breath.
Guest wrote: If you actually look at the numbers, Sony's doing a good thing.
Do you really think Dell doesn't factor in the loss in trialware profit and pass that cost on to the consumer?
Both Sony and Dell will continue to make the same amount of money, and the customer pays the same amount of money on average, but Sony gives the customer a choice.
Critics of this move are the same people unable to see beyond "ONE DAY ONLY 50% OFF!" sales, and recognize it as "0.14% MORE EXPENSIVE 364 DAYS PER YEAR!"
Not sure about that math!
1 day @ 50% off = 364 days @ 100% more than sale price, or 200% more cost.
Guest wrote: "crapware is annoying but easy to remove, rather have crapware than a laptop with ONE USB port... "
Uh, buddy, if you're using USB technology the way it's been designed to be used you should only NEED one USB port.
It's not the PC-maker's fault if you buy crappy USB devices that don't have a second port on them for connecting other devices in serial.
All the same, where the heck did you find PC/laptop with only one USB port? Industry standard these days seems to be at least 2, if not 3.
Talk about confused and clueless.
You seem to be confusing USB with FireWire. USB devices don't connect in serial. One uses an USB hub. Find me one USB device that can be used as you describe and which does not have a built-in hub. (Keyboards with ports have built-in hubs, which you can see on OS X with System Profiler.)
The guy was obviously writing about the MacBook Air, which, indeed, has only one USB port. However, that's about all one usually needs on this sort of laptop. It's not meant to replace a desktop. The primary peripheral attached via USB would be a printer, though many people would use a wireless connection for a printer, as well as HD, etc. In any case, it's likely that one wouldn't need to connect more than one peripheral at a time.
Remember, too, that one can use Bluetooth for some peripherals. One can also get quite small USB hubs, usually with 4 ports. The lack of FireWire would be of more concern to me.
My 12" PowerBook G4 has 2 USB ports. Most of the time, I have nothing connected. If I'm using it a lot, I'll often use a portable mouse, which I find a bit less awkward than the trackpad. (I use a trackball with my iMac at home.) Occasionally, I'll have both a mouse and a printer attached, but I do have a small hub (includes a memory card reader, as well) or I could use a Bluetooth mouse.
