Continuing the subject of racism…

 

As racist as some governments can be, so are some companies.

 

Share-It, a payment services provider based out of Europe, have been engaged in racism for well over a decade.

 

How do I know?

 

Any time I place an order from a Turkish IP, Share-It declines the order with the generic reason “Unfortunately, we were unable to charge your credit card for your order.” This has been happening for well over a decade.

 

Need I mention that the credit cards in question have never had an issue with their credit limit? In fact, the very same order would succeed when placed on a non-Turkish IP (even with the same credit card).

 

That’s 10 years of racism, brought to you by the ecommerce company Share-It.

 

This despicable and wanton act of racism has not gotten better – it has only gotten worse over the years.

 

For instance, in previous years, Share-It representatives would actually get on the phone to verify orders that their fraud protection system deemed suspicious. This had helped me clear orders, albeit, with additional hassles introduced – such as requests for copies of the back and front of the credit card used while placing the orders, as well as an official government ID.

 

Now, even calling someone at Share-It does not result in a resolution.

 

Share-It was a German company that was later acquired by Digital River, a US company. Unfortunately, Digital River did nothing to stop the racism at Share-It after their acquisition.

 

Surely, there are many European companies that are not racist.

 

Our own ecommerce provider Cleverbridge is one such company, with whom I have not had negative experiences of racism. They were actually founded by some former Share-It people, and they are a German company as well. Clearly, some companies are making better choices than others and declining racism.

 

Racism tends to breed racism in return, so one cannot be too careful in consciously attempting to prevent any further instances of racism.

 

If you are using Share-It as your payment provider, I would strongly urge you to use another payment provider. There’s no telling how many legitimate orders you are missing!

InstallAware increased prices for customers in the Schengen Visa zone (most of Europe) by 30% on Monday, 17^th of December 2012.

 

“Apple do it, so I am doing it too…”

 

My friend Harry Kelly (ComponentSource) cautioned me strongly against increasing prices in Europe. His thinking was that, unless there is some specific value-add for the European region, the increase cannot be justified. He provided credible rationale that companies who did charge higher prices indeed provided localized services or some other value-adds which justify the increase in cost.

 

Apple’s Cow Manure

 

Of course, no matter what the rationale, we all feel it’s basically greed. For example, Apple sells their tablets in Europe, at US prices –clearly these are as localized as their phones are. The phones they sell at a heavy markup. So why not the tablets? Apple faced stiff competition in the tablet space, so they just couldn’t jack up the prices. It’s all about the competition.

 

InstallAware’s Facts

 

What’s InstallAware’s rationale then? Is it some justification of greed? No, it is not. Our rationale for the recent price increase is that our costs of doing business in Europe are getting exponentially higher. How/why? Take a hint from the opening line of this blog.

 

My First Schengen Visa

 

I must have gotten my first Schengen visa in 2003. I was unemployed (erm, an entrepreneur) back then. I had no work history and no assets. I was trying to get to Cologne to attend my first European shareware conference. I suffered countless long waits in line, many an early morning, in front of the German embassy in Ankara. To say these waits were undignified would be an understatement. Having received college education in the US, I had grown accustomed to a basic semblance of human rights. All of these were being unilaterally violated by the treatment of visa applicants at the German embassy in Ankara.

 

I did eventually get my visa issued. It was valid for one week only! This visa was certainly the shortest I have ever been issued. Talk of freedom of travel!

 

My Subsequent Schengen Visa’s

 

My first morning in line outside the German embassy, I’d had a very unnerving encounter. A stranger had shown up right next to me and started volunteering information on how to get visas for travel to Germany. Usually I get suspicious when information is being volunteered in this manner…

 

… so while my mind was spinning around about the implications of what I was hearing from this strange volunteer of information, I was completely unprepared for the eventuality that his predictions would turn out to be entirely accurate. He said that I’d get my first visa for a week. And then the next one would be issued for two weeks. Then the next one for a month, assuming I never overstayed my visa. And then two months or three months, after which, six months – or a full year if I was lucky.

 

Now at this point, I already had a ten year US visa on my passport. So it all was a bit too  much to take in. I was in denial about what I was being told.

 

In fact, the visas that I would be eventually issued over the years followed this exact same pattern. So much so, that it would be in 2011 when I was finally issued a full year’s visa.

 

By which point, of course, I was no longer unemployed – or penniless. So it did not come as a surprise to me, and when I applied for my latest Schengen visa recently, just weeks ago, I was expecting a 2 year, or dare I say, 5 year visa!

 

European Racism

 

My latest Schengen visa, which was issued less than a month ago, is valid for three weeks, and it is a single entry visa. And the maximum stay allowed is a total of ten days!

 

This visa is utterly non-usable. This visa grounds me and restricts my freedom of travel in Europe completely. How come I’ve ended up being a persona-non-grata in Europe?

 

I cannot come up with any other rationale for it other than European racism. Sure, in 2003, Germany had plenty of reasons to be concerned about an unemployed visitor. But in 2012, Holland has absolutely no reasons to be concerned about my visit. If anything, they should be trying to encourage me to stay longer, so I can spend my money in their nice country.

 

We did appeal to the Dutch embassy in Ankara. Our appeal was rejected. The utter rape of the anonymous information volunteer’s pattern was final!

 

InstallAware R&D is Based in Turkey

 

Ever since our founding in 2003, InstallAware R&D has been based out of Ankara, Turkey.

 

If the founder of InstallAware has trouble getting Schengen visas, imagine what InstallAware employees must go through trying to get Schengen visas?

 

The “fiat” cost of a visa is absolutely negligible compared to the opportunity cost and especially the loss of time with a special emphasis on the indignities laid on the applicant.

 

Our accountants have worked this cost out to be about 30% of our net costs. Which aligns, rather nicely, with InstallAware’s switch to EUR based pricing in Europe.

 

You May Appeal!

 

Unhappy that you have to pay an extra 30% just because you’re based in Europe? Somehow am I not surprised by your reaction!

 

Because we’re not racist, we’ll issue you a 30% discount coupon if you:

 

1)      Call or fax the Dutch embassy in Ankara, and let them know you are calling in connection with the subject matter of this blog.

 

OR

 

2)      Call or fax your EU representative, asking them to terminate their racist practice of limiting Turkish freedom of travel in Europe.

 

AND

 

Let them know that a global company with R&D headquartered in Turkey has been forced to pass on Schengen visa costs to you, their customer in Europe.

 

For your convenience, the phone and fax numbers of the visa department of the Dutch embassy in Ankara are provided below:

 

Voice: +90 312 409 17 50 (GMT+2 13.30- 16.30 hours only)

Fax: +90 312 409 18 91

 

Provide us with a recording of the phone conversation or a copy of the fax (including the transmission sent confirmation) and we will provide you with a 30% discount, offsetting the effects of our EUR based pricing in your region.

 

InstallAware will honor this discount on direct orders as well as reseller orders.

 

Thank you for helping us make the world a better place!

 

PS: Please do not be tempted to circumvent our pricing through proxies etc. InstallAware has to decline orders from companies/individuals based in the Schengen visa zone that have circumvented our geo-IP targeting.

We always strive to provide our customers with the timeliest and most accurate service possible. While as customers we are all likely to complain of “poor service” when we don’t get everything we want right when we need it (keep in mind that at InstallAware, we are very close to this ideal), – I wanted to share InstallAware‘s experiences with the Google AdWords team to put things in the right perspective – not only for the benefit of our over demanding customers, but also for the benefit of all Google’lers there – in whose shoes I’d feel quite a bit of embarrassment after reading the below.

On 8/13, we contacted our Google account rep Summer Prevé (summer.p@google.com) with suspicions of click fraud for the preceding week. We had been gradually increasing our AdWords spending – and seeing a correlated return in revenue – until a very anomalous drop the week before.

After much back and forth trying to convince Summer that the issue at hand was not with our tracking systems and what-not, on 9/21, Summer finally wrote “I’ll be in touch in the next 3 business days when I have answer from invalid clicks.” By this time it had been about six weeks since our initial contact, and we had provided Google with direct access to all of our server logs (and everything else they asked us for).

Unfortunately, we never heard back. Summer was uncomfortable with our “not letting the issue go”, and was complaining that she was assigned to 250 AdWords accounts, in addition to ours. I suggested that she transfer us to another representative who might be more motivated to provide us with a resolution.

Enter Michael Griffin (michael.gri@google.com), on 10/23 (almost three months after our escalation to Google). Michael has been incomparably worse than Summer. To date, Michael responded to only two emails from InstallAware.

The first one ominously read “Please call me asap at 650-253-5671.” This wording suggested that he had finally obtained some good, actionable information – upon which I called him immediately and he promptly hung up with some random excuse.

His second email, on 10/30, read “I’ve been out of the office. Please give me a call at 650-253-5671.” He has not returned a single email or phone call ever since.

Now, our spending on AdWords has been scaled back to about 5% of what it was before the incident on 8/6. Clearly, it is in Google’s interest to respond to us – but the employees they have brought on board apparently couldn’t care less. I reached out to my EO network, asking for feedback, and this is what I heard from them:

“Google representatives have always been hit or miss (mostly miss) for us…we really don’t want to be on their radar. They do have the ability to ‘tweak’ your account and turn it up or down some – somewhat forcing you to spend more to basically stay in one place…I do know that Google Reps only respond to folks with spends higher than 10k per month…” – John

“Good luck. Dealing with Google is not easy. They know they are the 800 pound Gorilla and they behave like it too.” – Jack

It is 11/17 today – more than three months after we spotted a problem, and provided Google with all they asked for in trying to obtain a resolution.

As with Bing, who had magically de-listed InstallAware in 2011 (and were ignoring our contact requests at the time), we have no recourse other than to attempt to engage the attention of Google via a public Internet posting. Hopefully somebody at Google still cares!

He wasn’t in space at first. He was busy smashing through the glass ceiling of the software installer experience:

 

InstallAware Superhero Debut

 

Then, what happened? How did it end up that, just like a disillusioned Mr. Manhattan, the InstallAware Superhero ended up on Mars?

 

InstallAware Space Jockey

 

There’s clues hidden in materials throughout the InstallAware website in helping you find the answer!

 

We’ve reserved a full Studio 15 license with 1 year maintenance for the discoverer of the right solution.

 

Hurry! Confused InstallAware customers are depending on you to solve the puzzle:

This splash screen is disturbing. -Tim U.

For those not in on the joke, it doesn’t inspire confidence – the image is a mechanized system fail. -Jim C.

 

What is really going on? Post your solutions/insights/discussion here:

http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8935

 

Let the speculation run wild!

InstallAware NX 14.11, currently live, adds the following bug fixes:

The ProgressBar control now does not flicker on Windows Vista and newer operating systems.

The IDE failed to add web update dialogs to a project when web updates were being enabled for the first time.

InstallAware NX 14.1, currently live, adds the following bug fixes:

The Convert Path command now expands environment variables, supports relative paths, and prepends the setup folder to paths that lack drive letters.

The .NET Plug-In Bridge libraries and samples have been updated with further fixes.

InstallAware NX 14.05, currently live, adds the following bug fixes:

New projects created using any of the project wizards mistakenly suggested that script and project files not yet saved were marked read-only.
Some incorrect combinations of parameters passed to the Evaluate Expression command caused access violations during setup compilation.

An Interview for a Microsoft Internship

While I was at college, I applied for an internship at Microsoft. What better company to work at in the 90s? When I passed the first round of resume screening, and was invited to the on campus face to face interview, I was thrilled.

The first question was about which product I used most frequently. I responded, ‘Netscape’. This is circa 1996 🙂 I was applying for a Product Manager position, so my interviewer asked me what I would do if I was the Product Manager for Netscape. I responded, ‘I would turn it into a cross-platform operating system, so I could break the Microsoft/Intel desktop monopoly.’ That promptly ended the first part of the interview. I got the sense that the interview would be divided into two parts, and I had a good chance for the second part of the interview – since I had aced the first part in just a few minutes.

The second question, however, proved to be too tough for me. I was asked how I would design a TV remote. I was given a piece of paper to draw the remote on, which I did. As I was explaining the various buttons and what they did, we spent the remainder of the interview – almost all of the 30 total minutes – discussing Teletext. My European readers will already know what this is, and my American readers may be aware that it does not exist their side of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, I was unable to convince my Microsoft interviewer that indeed, on the European continent, Teletext existed as a technology.

Sadly, I was not called in for the third round of interviews on the Microsoft campus 🙂

 

Microsoft Plays into Apple’s and Google’s Hand with Windows 8

Whoa, what a leap! What does the above have to do with Windows 8 and its much controversial user interface, all of a sudden? Read on…

Apple and Google are smart enough to realize that they cannot directly challenge Microsoft on the Desktop. We’re all familiar with Steve Ballmer’s chant “Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers.” If you’re not, you should promptly familiarize yourself with it. Windows is hugely successful because of the countless applications built for it. And how easy it has traditionally been to build applications for Windows, compared to every other platform. Neither OSX, nor Linux has the number and diversity of applications that Windows has. Companies like Borland have tried to build a “Visual Basic” for Linux in the past, which might have been a game changer for Linux had it ever been realized.

So what did they do? Apple came up with the iPod. Then the iPhone, which is essentially a turbo-charged iPod with cellular capabilities. Then the iPad, which is essentially a turbo-charged iPhone with tablet capabilities.

Google came up with Android. Oh, they also made fun of Microsoft, a company whose slogan was “Information at your fingertips,” but failed miserably at realizing that vision – with their stellar search engine. Also, they followed up the act with the stuff about Google Documents, etc. – getting all your data online.

Now I am NOT a big fan of the cloud. Not only because the cloud and desktop software installations are kind of…shall we say non-synergic 🙂 But also, because I have trust issues that a massive corporation (any massive corporation) can be trusted with all of my data and files. I want them sitting in front of me…physically. But that’s just me.

Leaving my misgivings aside…do you see the pieces of the puzzle coming together now? Apple and Google ARE finally breaking Microsoft’s Desktop monopoly. Indeed, the Desktop is becoming increasingly irrelevant through the invention of multiple devices (if not cross platform operating systems) that are being used by more and more people daily.

Do you get the biggest irony of all? Microsoft are playing directly into Apple’s and Google’s hand by ruining their only pillar of strength: the Desktop. By hiding the Desktop in Windows 8, indeed by ruining the Desktop experience in every way imaginable, they are doing what Apple and Google could have never done on their own: They are running the Desktop into the ground, the one and only strategic advantage that they have had since their founding days of MS-DOS! What they’re doing is like retarding MS-DOS into CP/M when faced by the threat of DR-DOS.

Hello? Are the Microsoft Monkeys totally unchecked these days? The Microsoft Monkeys got Vista out, and then Windows 7 checked that sad development. What is up with Windows 8 though? Windows 8 is Microsoft playing into Apple’s and Google’s hand. There is no other way of looking at it. Who’s going to check Windows 8? At what cost to the Desktop industry? Will there be any recovering from this for all of us ISVs?

Shame on the old guard at Microsoft. I’ve been witnessing their platform devolve with the whole NT 6.x product line. Now I’m not sure it’ll survive long enough to see a recovery with a future NT 7.x product line. I suppose the rise and fall of every single company is inevitable. But seriously…shame on you, old guard of Microsoft. Soon there’ll be far more fun “apps” than “applications” and it won’t matter what you do.

 

Of Embarcadero

This may be even more tangentially related, but here goes.

Shame on Embarcadero, for shipping RAD Studio XE3 with an installer built using an unlicensed version of InstallAware. Is your company seriously not rich enough to buy a license – or to grant InstallAware non-expiring licenses for your own product per the product sharing treaty that you unilaterally violated?

Both Delphi and Windows are being so mis-managed by their owners, that us ISVs will probably need to start looking for jobs soon.

In case anybody wants to offer me a job, please feel free to email me for my resume 🙂

InstallAware NX version 14.03 (just posted live) contains the following bug fixes:

The Run as Administrator option in Create Shortcut was not working with some combinations of command parameters.
.NET Plug-In Bridge contained various bridge errors and the C# example project had incorrect code.