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Poll: Did MS Alienate Customers?

ms_masthead_ltrSince Microsoft abandoned Flight Simulator many people ‘declared’ they would no longer support the Redmond giant. FS was the only reason they were buying MS products (read: operating systems) anyway and that reason now had disappeared. Obviously many people, especially in communities like ours, were extremely disappointed. But to what extent did the recent unfortunate events in Redmond REALLY change your behaviour towards Microsoft? Let us know in the poll (see right-hand column).
By the way, you can also still show your support for FS via our Facebook group here !

0 Responses

  2. Maybe MS abandoned Flight Simulator because of the number of total A__hole you find at the forums at Simviation.com and ORBX (especially the CEO).

  3. Many PC users I know are switching to MAC. They feel that MAC is more stable and less prone to virus and worm infections. I think this would have occured regardless of Microsoft’s descision to abandon FLight Simulator. However, many FS users (such as myself) also use their PCs for business purposes. The FS commiunity is a large one, and MS did themselves and their company no favors by abandoning a product that had that kind of appeal. Microsoft revealed their corporate culture which obviously is that of the company first, customers second.

  4. I can’t say it has really. I knew they were a corporate entity before and I know they are now. I knew they wanted to go to an “on demand” distribution system for everything (they’ve been announcing that for years – it’s hardly news) and that they believe that the X-Box should be the centre of your world.

    So where do PC based entertainment products fit in Microsoft’s “future world”, exactly, other than ‘not at all’?

  5. I don’t own a PC. I program for PC’s at work but use Macs at home.

    As far as I was concerned, the only reason to buy into MS at home was FlightSim, and GPS software. Since MS alienated Mac FlightSim users early on, I’ve never been seriously tempted on that front. I just learned to love X-Plane. And as long as Garmin follows through with their promises to the Mac community, There will be no temptations on that front as well.

  6. Hey Francois, the link you posted that’s supposed to go to the Facebook group is just hooked to an image instead. You might want to fix it up.

  7. I’m totally with Franker69 here.
    Got a Mac recently and use the PC only for FS-X – until it dies out.

    In fact I fire it up only one or two times a months lately.

    And after getting the Mac I can definitely not see myself buying any other MS Windows version in the near future.

    Cheers,

    Emacs

  10. Hi, no more reason to use PC instead of a MAC, but we have to think about large numbers….we are a drop in the sea, I think nothing will change if all fsusers are changing os.

  11. Hi Francois,

    I do not see what purpose a poll like this serves. I think the community should be awaiting announcements from MS at the upcoming E3
    in June. If there are none about FS then I think the PC series will be history.

    Frank

  12. I am still using FS9. FSX is no matter for me. As long as FS9 will run on Windows XP on PCs I will buy sometimes in the future, I will use Windows XP as OS. If one day Windows XP won’t run anymore on new hardware, I will definately change to Ubuntu. It offers everything I need from a very good webbrowser (Firefox) over a very good office suite (OpenOffice), all tools I need up to my every day work development environment (Java, Eclipse, Tomcat App-Server). FS9 is the only reason why MS is still present on my PC.

  13. As to what purpose a poll like this serves? For one, giving me something to grin about…… like some of these answers 😉

    But I’m always open to suggestions for other exciting questions to which our readers have a burning desire to learn the answers !

  14. Geez, give it a rest will you? I don’t like the decision either but you know the sun will come up tomorrow. Why don’t you change the name of this website to: “Save us all, the end of time is surely at hand because we have been abandoned by Microsoft”. It’s like your counting down the end of the days. Try and understand this: laying off ACES is NOT abandoning flightsim. It’s one negative post or letter after another from you and its getting old really quick. Try a positive pill or check into some rehab

  16. It’s time to change to X-Plane and / or to quit windows?

    I have used Microsoft FS for 12 years but now i think that
    If the community embraces X-Plane, it will be a superior product and
    X-Plane runs on Win, Mac and Linux.

  17. Well, as I work for Microsoft and love FlighSim I can understand the issues that this decision has raised. After reading the posts I can see that actually we are discussing two issues, first we are unhappy about the decision about ACES, regarding this I am pretty sure that we will receive an update about the future of the franchise anytime soon (can’t disclose), there are many reasons behind this decision and don’t get MSFT wrong, they are not only commercials but aligment ones.

    The second issue is regarding the use of Windows, it is good to have alternatives, if you like MAC that is great, if you don’t, you have other options. We are working really hard addressing customer request around what they want to see in Windows. We interact massively with customers in order to drive our development, the problem is that there are so many users that sometimes looks like an small effort. Regarding security I will make a clear comment, Apple is constantly patching (as well as Linux) its OS and applications, they don’t just have so much publicity and they enjoy a free lunch from the press (nobody talks about how aweful performs itunes) as the market needs and wants competition (I also believe that competition is great and Apple has done other amazing things).

    Anyway, I love FlightSim and this goes beyond MSFT and I hope we can enjoy many new enhancements in future versions. X-plane is great, but there is a lack of add-ons at the moment and for people like me that built a custom cockpit it is difficult to integrate it.

    There will always be a love-hate battle, and as Francois said, it is good to rant sometimes 🙂

    Happy Flying!

  18. 🙂

    I have been using Flight Simulator from even before it was called Flight Simulator… that makes it more than 30 years I think, and I won’t give up on it anytime soon. There is LOTS of life in the product.
    I tried X-Plane a few times, and kept going back to the Mother of All Flight Simulators…. and Grandmother too…. 😉

    People like John Haily clearly do NOT understand my intentions and feelings…. or don’t care to. I will not give up for many years, sorry. One of the reasons being that I made it my business 😉

    But the poll was indeed not only about FS, but rather about what effect such a – maybe rational – business decision may have on a very ’emotional market’ as the core flightsim scene is.

  19. See that’s what I mean Francis, you figure your the only one who has any passion or tie to flightsimming. I’ve logged thousands of hours of flightsim time dating back to SubLogic’s ATP and through FS98, 2000, 2002, 2004 and a bit of X and a tiny bit of X Plane. I work, raise a family and still find time to fly almost daily. You don’t think thousands of users are concerned about where the evolution of flightsim is headed? But good grief, there’s tons of other potential developers who have contributed aircraft, sceneries, utilities, even other versions of flightsims and we do have two very stable existing platforms of flightsim that we can all still enjoy, new products are still released regularly for FS9 and X. Great to be concerned, but are you really in a position to say they’ve “abandoned” flight simulator? I sure hope you have a poll or write an apology letter when the next version comes out, whether its 2 or 3 or 5 or 10 years away. Then the next question can be: “Should Francis Dumas have shot off his mouth before he knew what he was saying?” Somehow, doubt we’ll see that poll.

  20. OK.
    Flightsim, I abandon thee! Microsoft made a decision that doesn’t actually affect me, so I’m going to give up flight simming and all the hundreds (possibly thousands over the years)of dollars I have invested in it with add ons and hardware upgrades to go and buy a product that I feel is totally inferior in every way. I had X-Plane once and sent it back. It was awful…. in my opinion. They have a very long way to go before they even get near FS.
    I, like many others have been around flightsim since it was a green, wire framed model which was just about impossible to fly and have had every incarnation of it since so will not be running off to the store to replace it.
    As far as any other MS product goes, exactly the same thing. I have windows XP at home and at work and am not about to shell out a load of cash to change because of someone else’s opinion about it’s manufacturer. When it comes time to renew the PC I will not entertain MAC, I don’t like it.
    So, MS decision has had no effect on my opinion whatsoever nor is it likely to influence my future purchases.

  22. I am new to FSX and just bought it a couple of weeks ago. I had a hell of a time installing it with Error 1935 ( some junk error) , researched it tried fsutil commands but failed. Finally was able to format / reinstall Windows vista on my Gateway MT6705 sysstem and installed FSX first before installing other programs and it worked like a charm. Had to upgrade it and finally it worked. However ,I feel upset that there is no more support offered by Microsoft and they have stopped supporting ACES. I am an avid linux user and will continue to use FlightGear with Linux but it is nowhere compared to FSX which I enjoyed flying! I want to thank all developers involved!

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