Jan
18

Eopen V VLSC

Steve WrightGeneral

I thought I’d do a quick comparison of using Eopen versus the “new and improved” Volume Licence Service Centre (VLSC) to add a new agreement.

Scenario 1: Eopen

  1. Receive email from distribution with agreement number and licence number.
  2. Log on to the Eopen website with my Live ID.
  3. Click on “add new agreement”
  4. Enter the agreement number and licence number
  5. Accept the agreement T&Cs
  6. Download licenced software/keys.

Scenario 2: VLSC

  1. Receive email from distribution with agreement number and licence number. (Distribution obviously unaware of changes as email still states go to Eopen site).
  2. Log on to the VLSC website with my Live ID.
  3. Go to Settings > Request Permissions
  4. Choose program type
  5. Enter Agreement and license number
  6. Set Permission role requested.
  7. Wait for end user to receive email asking them to add partner permissions
  8. Talk end user through setting up a Live ID
  9. Talk end user through accessing the VLSC website
  10. Talk end user through managing users and accepting request.
  11. Wait for email saying permission request granted.
  12. Log on to VLSC with my Live ID.
  13. Download licensed software/keys.

In reality scenario 1 used to take 10 minutes max. Scenario 2 took 8 hours while we waited for emails to arrive, the customer to be available to talk through the process etc.

The worst part of all this is we then get the customer saying to us “why are you involving us in this process? We don’t want all the hassle, that’s why we pay you to sort it out for us”. To be honest I couldn’t agree more.

Go take a look at Eric Ligman’s blog post and the huge number of replies and you’ll see we aren’t the only ones complaining!

2 Responses to “Eopen V VLSC”

  1. Mark Thompson

    Couldn’t agree more. This is such a farce. We have now spent 10 days trying to add just 5 more Windows 7 licences to an existing licence. No one wnats to know let alone take responsibility.

    Eopen was so easy to use and made it attractive to sell licences. This new system has effectively ended our ability to sell licences - we just can’t commit to install dates because we don’t know when the licences will be available.

    As you say end users just don’t want to know. They just don’t want to be involved in this process let alone start creating Live IDs, etc. Thats what they pay us to look after.

    Is anyone at MS listening?

    February 4th, 2010 | 1:32 pm
  2. Paul Dadge

    Just gone through the exact process, took a week. However I did save some time by setting up a liveID for the user myself.

    Not impressed.

    March 5th, 2010 | 7:12 am

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