JD on EP

Cesar Menendez is a Microsoft staffer who is doing a good job on some of the technical issues (and explicitly hits the Vista "no support" phrasing), but this is in a different sphere than the overall weblog conversation on Zune.

Although it sort of ruins the effect to say so, my take on Zune is to ignore it completely.

Are the same demographic buying Zune really going to care about Vista? Seriously, I would assume the general consumer would buy a Zune + PC this Christmas and expect it to work.

It will.

Zista isn't "out" this Christmas on pre-installed PC's.

So... seroiusly, who cares? ...oh yeah, I know... geeks! Geeks don't buy Zunes, though, they buy iPods.

[jd sez: True, that. MS did pick up some bad word-of-mouth on their music device, though... could have an effect on how people perceive it later.]

I would have been over at the Zune offices with my camcorder asking them why they couldn't make it work with Windows Vista yet. That was pretty lame.

But so is not putting an RSS aggregator into this product for downloading podcasts. After all, what's more "social" than recording your own stuff and sharing it with the world?

Okay, that's lame--one would hope they'll have it working by the time Vista actually ships. By the sounds Zune's reception they may not need to worry.

Hey, I wonder.... is there a Adobe Reader 8? Acrobat 8 is out right?
And, where do I get it for Vista anyway?
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html

It's still lame, but MS says they'll add support to vista "Erickson said that probably won't happen before Vista is made available to large businesses at the end of the month, but should happen well before the software goes on sale to consumers at the end of January."

See http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6135131.html

Adobe Acrobat 8 is in staged release, and I'd have to look up which parts are out already. Vista testing would be done with the releases available at time of testing.

I'd hope we wouldn't only offer a list of "supported systems", though... it would be better if we said what we tested on, what problems were seen, what types of systems we recommend for best performance.

Do you have an issue with the term "supported systems"? Most products have "system requirements".
Adobe uses the same basic terms as far as I understand: "...supported on the following operating systems and browsers".

Are you just saying it's better to disclose all known bugs etc.? I'd agree there.

The reason I consider phrases like "supported system" or "that's not supported" to be weasel phrases is that they don't tell what the speaker tested, what problems they found, what help they'll offer customers who do something totally wacky. They don't say what you'll do, they just say how you label something. Coming out of tech support, I always saw such a phrase as a copout.

How could that Zune technote have been improved?

To use Zune software, please install a supported operating system."

"We're sorry, but there may be a problem for this project to work on your computer."

Zune software is compatible with the following operating systems:

"We have tested this project on the following operating systems... if you experience any problem with installation or basic use contact TS; for advice on best usage discuss in our newsgroup" etc.

Then either:
(a) "We have not tested your SUSE Linux system and do not know if it will work"; or
(b) "This project requires the .NET framework 3.0, which cannot run on your Windows 95 system"; or
(c) "We haven't tested your Amiga system, but we're really pretty sure it won't support this project."

Zune currently supports only the English North America versions of the above operating systems.

Does this mean that a UK system will fail? that you don't know? what?

Windows Vista is not supported at this time. Check back soon for updates.

Whoever owns that document *should* have fixed it over the past three days... don't tell me to check back for updates, update it soon yourself. [grrr]

Think of the many ways readers could understand "Zune doesn't support Vista". The writer may have had a particular meaning in mind. But by failing to address reader concerns -- by relying on ambiguous labeling -- the writer completely flubbed the task of communicating. The meaning of a message is the response it elicits.

Too many adjectives, not enough verbs -- that's the issue I had with that document.

Not sure if they fixed the adjective to verb ratio--but the zune works in vista now.

http://www.zune.net/en-US/meetzune/software/OS_not_supported.htm