Microsoft s Ultimate Extras overhyped users underwhelmed

A Microsoft plan to reward some of its most enthusiastic Windows users has instead frustrated them by falling short of its promise. The company acknowledges the problem, says it ran into unexpected complications and vows to make things right.

In the meantime, it's a sore point for the types of tech-savvy PC users who can influence the opinions of others -- at a time when Microsoft is trying to overcome a rocky first year for its newest Windows version.

The saga started more than a year ago, a few weeks before Windows Vista's retail launch. During Bill Gates' speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2007, Microsoft announced the "Ultimate Extras" program -- promising to regularly deliver additional programs and features as a bonus to PC users who bought the high-end Windows Vista Ultimate, which originally retailed for nearly $400.

The idea was "to deliver more value to those customers," said Barry Goffe, a Windows product management director, in an interview last week. "They're spending a lot of money with us, and they're generally pretty engaged in technology, and we thought, 'Wow, here's an opportunity to take advantage of our own infrastructure and really delight these customers,' " he said.

More than a year later, five Ultimate Extras have been released, well short of most expectations. Most of the extras came out around the time of the Windows Vista retail launch, resulting in long dry spells during the operating system's first year. And the GroupShot photo-editing tool, one of the Ultimate Extras originally touted by Microsoft, hasn't yet been released as one.

The released Ultimate Extras include a Hold 'Em Poker game, international language packs, data encryption tools and DreamScene, a feature that replaces the normally static desktop wallpaper on the PC screen with video. Microsoft had promised to deliver "cutting-edge programs," "innovative services" and "unique publications" as extras.

Initially, the Ultimate Extras lived up to expectations, "but it quickly became apparent there would be little additional content besides what was offered on release day," blogger Long Zheng said in an e-mail last week. Zheng has followed the issue closely on his site, istartedsomething.com

Microsoft could have released simple extras, such as a premium Hotmail subscription or digital copies of the "Games for Windows" magazine, Zheng said. As "a more extreme example," he said, the company could have offered a free digital copy of its "Halo 2" video game for Windows Vista as an extra.

"Or even just a new wallpaper a month would have been welcomed," he added.

Microsoft is working on new Ultimate Extras, Goffe said. One is a casual game that will be exclusive to Vista Ultimate -- "much more sophisticated than Windows Hold 'Em," he said. Others include an exclusive library of Windows MovieMaker effects and transitions, and Windows DVD Maker templates.

At the same time, he acknowledged that the company initially overestimated its ability to come up with the bonus programs. Goffe last year publicly apologized for the situation in a blog post.

"The people who buy Ultimate are generally amongst the most savvy and technically capable customers, and they're also very vocal. So we've had a lot of challenging conversations, quite frankly," Goffe said last week. "It's certainly within their right to say that we should have delivered more to them."

Scott Dunn, associate editor of the Windows Secrets newsletter, said Microsoft has fallen short of what it originally touted. "It was a nice marketing idea, but they never really put the resources behind it to make it happen," said Dunn, who has written about the problem.

Microsoft's Goffe said the company has, in some cases, needed to put a higher priority on work that applies to all Windows users, such as Windows Vista Service Pack 1. That big bundle of fixes and updates was released publicly last week, seeking to address performance and reliability problems experienced by early Windows Vista users.

But Goffe said the biggest challenge has been the high standards Microsoft sets for Windows Update, the internal Windows mechanism that the company uses to deliver fixes and updates, including the Ultimate Extras. Programs delivered that way must meet a high bar for quality and security, he said, and they must be translated into many languages.

On the plus side, Goffe said, the Windows Update standards mean customers will receive quality software through the Ultimate Extras initiative.

But it makes it hard for Microsoft to come up with Ultimate Extras that meet that bar, aren't included in another product and can be delivered in a timely manner, he said.

"Customers often take for granted the fact that a small feature can get whipped up by a couple of developers over a caffeine-fueled weekend and thrown down onto people's desktops," he said. "Maybe in certain corners of the technology space, that's true, but when you're talking about an operating system used by a billion people, it takes a lot of effort to take an arbitrary piece of code and bring it up to that very high level of quality."

Microsoft recently launched a new site, UltimatePC.com

Windows Vista Ultimate users can get discounts on hardware and software. But Goffe acknowledged that the discounts aren't a replacement for the free Ultimate Extras.

Goffe said Microsoft is "getting close" to releasing more Ultimate Extras, but he declined to say exactly when that will happen.

At this point, he explained, "I'd rather underpromise and overdeliver."

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