Stupid Companies

So I’ve been having this on-again, off-again debate with myself regarding Xen and VMWare’s ESX Server. The project I’m working on is lending itself to using virtualization for some of our web sites, and while we have a small installation, there’s a big potential that that solutions in this space that we come up with will influence the entire University Extension System.

I tried Xen, and it’s still a bit “geeky” to configure. I want something that is a little easier to get up and running and configure. So I wanted to download VMWare ESX server.

Well, that’d be great but I can’t get past their new customer registration form because it requires freakin’ internet explorer!

(sorry, this is going to break the look and feel for the site, because the graphics are too large for the post area, but I didn’t want to shrink the graphics)

Here’s the bottom of the form in firefox:

FirefoxScreenSnapz008.jpg

And when you submit the form (“Continue”) — you get various errors about information missing.

Here’s the bottom of the form in IE.

RDCScreenSnapz005.jpg

Because I can’t submit a simple web form from the browser and platform I use? VMWare, I think you just lost yourself a potential customer and probably several others if I have anything to say about it and you don’t fix problems like this. And if you can’t get a cross-browser web form right in 2006, I don’t trust that you can get a system-level virtualization product right.

([p.s.] I probably shouldn’t have violated my own rule to not post when I’m extremely annoyed with something or someone (which I violate all the time and I need to stop doing so) But I’m really, really, hoping this lights a fire under someone’s keester at the company. Thankfully for VMware, I probably don’t have enough Google Rank to do that and have this actually go anywhere)

([p.p.s] I’m calmed down now. I’m still annoyed, but this whole note is overly hyperbolic when reading it with calmer eyes. I’m leaving it for posterity though)

([p.p.p.s] A VMWare rep did comment here (I mailed the link to this article to their sales division) — which was a good PR move. Thanks for the comment, I do very much appreciate that)