Great tech gear - but I'm not buying - Sony does NOT rock!

[chickwriter]

A giant BOO and HISS to Sony...first we have the whole DRM thing, which soured me greatly. Okay, I'm prepared to be big about this and forgive them because they backed off and made retribution. Stupid mistake on their part, but still, I have always liked their hardware. Had a Sony VAIO laptop for several years. I've always reccomended Sony laptops for folks that want to buy a PC platform.

But now, spending money on Sony--not so much.

I'm reading Gizmodo and ogling all the new gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show, this item caught my eye.

It's perfect, I think - you can buy e-books, you can download HTML files and PDFs (perfect for reading fic). So I try to go to the Connect Store to see if I can find out more info (e.g., what it's going to cost, when it will be available, etc.

This is what I get:

Our Apologies

We appreciate your interest in the Connect music store, but our store currently only works with Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. You don't seem to be using that particular browser at the moment, so, unfortunately, we'll have to part ways until we support the browser you're currently using or you upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer. Please click the Download link below if you'd like to upgrade now.

Thank your for your interest in the Connect music store!


Uh, so sorry - I don't use IE for anything but testing stuff at work. My primary browser on a PC is Firefox. My primary browser on a Mac is Safari. So you won't let me shop, huh? Well, then SO SORRY back atcha, no Sony products for this techie.

ETA:


Sony Unveils Reader
As we noted over the holiday break, 2006 will bring the next wave of e-reading devices in America, this time based on a variety of "electronic ink" technologies that provide much improved text resolution and draw very little battery power. For now, everything about these devices--including the hardware pricing, and availability and pricing of files for downloading--is still at least a few generations away from anything as seductive or seamless as iTunes/iPod. But that won't stop the media and the manufacturers from making the reference at every turn, starting with today's official announcement of Sony's new e-reader.

(In the same vein, it's ironic/funny that Sony's web-based store for selling files, Connect, says that it doesn't support Macs at all, and it won't use Firefox or Safari or any browser besides Internet Explorer. They'll never emulate iTunes with that strategy!)

Sony's official release doesn't offer anything that wasn't already in BusinessWeek's report last week. USA Today says Sony expects to have only about 1,000 titles available from Connect when the device launches, and there is still no indication of whether downloads will be priced to reflect how little most consumers value electronic book files (so we presume that means they won't).

Comments

[vamysteryfan.livejournal.com]

That's very poor customer relations. You really need to send them an email pointing out that not only is it stupid not to support other browsers, it's stupid to be so obnoxious about not supporting other browsers. And a gentle ackonowledgement that you're a techie that talks a lot to other techies would not be out of place.

[chickwriter.livejournal.com]

Totally horrific customer service! Planning to send them a detailed letter about how they just lost a customer and how they lost my potential fabulous word-of-mouth.