Two Points of Clarification
Here is a status update on my rebate as promised in a previous post:
I applaud VMware for taking the time to monitor feedback of their product on the web. HOWEVER, one would think that following a "two-hour" meeting on the topic and continued complaints on this board that they would have thought to modify the VMware website content management system to disable the online rebate altogether OR post a message that if you get the error to mail it in.
While the VMware message boards appear to be more helpful from VMware support this experience seems to indicate that VMware is no better unless you post to a widely read forum. Stick with parallels if you already have it and its working; for most users there is no need to switch.
I would disagree with both of those claims.
1. The nature of message boards are similar to those of doctor's offices: everyone you see there has an issue. That's why they're there, and that's why the boards exist. What you don't see are the thousands of people whose rebates have been processed without issue.
In this case, your recommendation to disable the online piece of the rebate, wholesale, is a non-starter, in that because VMware has a rebate outsourcer handling rebates for VMware.com and a subset of resellers (MacMall, Mac Zone, Mac Connection, etc.), but NOT other resellers, like Amazon, Apple.com, Apple store, Buy.com, etc., which are fulfilled by Smith Micro, VMware Fusion's publisher, it is vital that the rebate outsourcer be able to parse between copies of Fusion that are eligible for fulfillment through them, and those which aren't.
If the mail-in form were posted online, the user experience would get WORSE, in that some users would send in forms to the outsourcer which should have gone to Smith Micro, and as such, never get their rebate. This would of course be undesirable in the extreme, since we want VMware Fusion customers to have a great experience all the way around, and not introduce new problems.
Regardless, the current issues are being addressed in a variety of ways to help the small subset of users currently having issues, with fixes going live this weekend, however, seemingly simple suggestions that are seemingly obvious, are usually more complicated, as is the case here.
2. I would wholeheartedly disagree with you claim about the VMware Fusion forums being less trafficked and read than third party forums like this one. Both engineering and marketing from the VMware Fusion team read the Fusion forums constantly, and forward concerns to the appropriate parties inside VMware when a problem arises.
In fact, that the VMware Fusion team reads third party forums, via Google Alerts, and so on, is actually something that is a layer above and beyond monitoring our own forums.
I'm glad that you have gotten resolution to your issue, but at the same time, it's important that the record be straight with respect to those two points above.
The conclusion is:
1. Fixes to the rebate program are going live this weekend to enhance the user experience to the already very small subset of users who were having issues (but whose issues are unacceptable nonetheless).
2. The VMware Fusion forums (
http://www.vmware.com/go/fusionforums) are widely read by both the engineering and business teams, and are a great resource if you ever have an issue, either with the software or with the business process surrounding VMware Fusion.
