Answering some of the comments
There have been quite a few comments to various of my blog entries, all covering the competition, so rather than try to answer them all individually I'll try to cover them here:
1) People have mentioned that while they saw London Underground on stage, they didn't see any other customers in the videos. Well, they absolutely are there. In fact we had 5 customers in various videos throughout the day, however the questions don't name all of them. So you need to make a note of the customer names, then see which ones appear in the list of possible answers, and select them.
2) Some people were hoping for technical questions rather than "which customers". We felt a technical question would be unfair to newcomers and to developers from competitive platforms. This approach requires you to watch the video (you won't really be able to guess unless you've watched them) and doesn't differentiate on the basis of technical knowledge or experience.
3) Some people felt that none of the customers actually appear in the videos. At least one person said that there were "no customers on stage during any of the Vista sessions". Well, that's not true. All of these customers absolutely do appear, and customers are in both the Office and Vista tracks. I have just watched the appropriate videos myself and yes they are there.
4) Some people have said "surely you don't need us to watch all of the videos before we'll get the answers?". If you want to take part in the Office competition, you'll need to watch the Office videos; And if you want to take part in the Vista competition, you'll need to watch the Vista videos. And if you want both, you'll need to watch them all. Of course, you can use the "thumbnails" to skip to the part of each video that might help you.
5) People have asked if the competition is already closed. No, it runs until 19th February. See http://www.microsoft.com/uk/launch2007/dev/vistatoc.mspx for terms and conditions.
I hope that helps to clarify things. I know it means you have to watch quite a few videos but to be honest that's the point.
Comments
Anonymous
January 19, 2007
wow, 19th February? I wouldn't have thought it would take a month to get 1000 right answers for each question - I'd have thought that would be over by now! Hang on... Now I'm worried that I didn't get it right. The way you say "which ones appear in the list of possible answers, and select them" makes me concerned cos I only ticked one customer :-SAnonymous
January 19, 2007
I went and checked the question, and it is definitely singular "which customer". Phew, i was worried for a second there :-)Anonymous
January 19, 2007
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January 19, 2007
On the lighter side.. The reason that we all remembered London Underground was because we all cheered as they pulled up to the stage (on time and without any delay)!Anonymous
January 19, 2007
Ian, will entrants have to wait till after the competition closes to know if they have won or will you be sending out winning emails earlier ? I'd quite like to buy vista asap if I haven't.Anonymous
January 19, 2007
Hi there Ian, Can i just check - so if we just put in one of the customers for each question, and not all that appeared, that won't be counted as correct?Anonymous
January 20, 2007
Christopher: thanks for your feedback. It's a tough one, and believe me many people put thought into this and we went through a number of options of how to run it. Obviously want we don't want it to cause frustrations for people and sorry if we've done so. I'll make sure we take on-board your comments. Weeble: we'll notify you asap, I can't give you a precise date but we aren't waiting until the competition finishes to do this ie as soon as we know we have 1000 correct entries we'll contact the people who have won. Xact: If there were (for example) two valid customer names listed in the set of possible answers, then you need to tick these two - no more, no less - for the answer to be considered correct. When I saw "valid customer names" I mean names of customers who were on-stage during any of the launch sessions.Anonymous
January 20, 2007
Is there any update on how many entries you have recieved so far and if it has gone over 1000 yet for either option?Anonymous
January 20, 2007
My only complaint is that I was concerned with the difference between the naming, for Vista, I saw a partner (or partners), but the question asks, what CUSTOMER.. surely theres a big difference between customer and partner. Btw, the Videos are extremely interesting if you stop worrying about trying to find the answers and actually watch :)Anonymous
January 20, 2007
Thanks Stephen, we did think about that for a while, the issue is that "partner" is only a term that means something if you're in the Microsoft "world" (well, to a certain extent). Essentially these people are all "customers" of ours, we were concerned that the differentiation between customers and partners would actually cause confusion for some people. But thanks for the feedback, we'll take it on board. And thanks for the comments re the videos :-)Anonymous
January 20, 2007
I thought the questions were pretty good actually. I remembered the company names from the Office presentations and luckily happened to be watching the Vista presentation that included the correct company. From what I've read in various posts I think some people seem to have misunderstood what’s required for the competition. I get the impression some are just watching the keynote rather than the sessions which is why they aren't getting the answers. (As far as I know) none of the answers were in the keynote. I just have a quick question though; I originally entered just the Office question as they were the presentations that I watched of Friday. Once I'd seen the Vista question I went back to enter into the Vista comp as well. The competition system seemed to read as though I should select the “both” option, I did this and it had remembered the boxes I had ticked for the Office questions. Is it the case that it's just one form and you can go back and edit it or have I disqualified myself by submitting it twice?Anonymous
January 20, 2007
Is it possible to change an answer or to answer the Office question if i originally answered the Vista question only?Anonymous
January 20, 2007
Hi Ian I see that you are the person who organizes this competition so i ask for your help. I didn't know that I automatically receive a copy of Vista if I attend the presentations in the Reading campus. I was left with the impression that even those who physically attend the presentations should answer the online question, which seems not to be the case! Unfortunately when I returned home yesterday I answered the online question. So now how could my name be removed from the online register? I want someone else to have a chance to get a copy of Vista, as I will get it automatically. RegardsAnonymous
January 20, 2007
I'll find out about multiple entries, not sure whether that's an issue. As soon as I know I'll post the answer. AlexL - many thanks, please send me a separate email and I'll arrange it.Anonymous
January 20, 2007
While people are asking this, I'm not sure if I accidentally signed up twice, I went to do the questions and then watched some of the casts again, when I was happy with my answers I submitted, it took awhile for the form to come back so I carried on browsing, when I clicked back on the tab it was on a live id sign in page. I signed in with my live id and answered the questions again. I cannot be sure that I used the same live id, since I have around three live ids, but the name and address would be the same. I assumed this would get filtered (if both entries were actually processed) but just to ensure I don't accidentally get two copies (or elimate myself from getting any copies) is there any way I could remove one of my entries? Sorry if this is a fuss!Anonymous
January 20, 2007
It feels 'wrong' to allow people to attempt both competition questions. It could be seen as effectively allowing people two entries, which contravenes the spirit of the competition. The whole point of the competition was to encourage people to watch the presentations. The one thousand correct answers probably appeared within a few minutes of the competition opening. You said up-front that we needed to watch as many of the presentations as possible to increase our chance of knowing the competition answers. Therefore, there was only enough time to focus on one presentation stream during Friday, depending on whether your interest was greater for Vista or Office. Consequently it probably means that one of the two answers will likely be a pure guess. Statistically, some of those guesses will be correct, to the disadvantage of the people who had watched the presentations but were slower in getting their answers in. Having said that, I’m like Danny, in that I only answered the Office question. I’d also like to know if it is an option to now attempt the Vista question, without damaging the integrity of my previous Office answer.Anonymous
January 20, 2007
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January 21, 2007
there seems to be some confusion ianm , you imply that more than 1 customer might have to be selected to answer the question correctly, also the vista question was posed with tick boxes rarther than radio buttons. However the question clearly stated 'customer' singular not customers plural if the correct answer involves more than 1 customer then you've used a trick question and i feel conned, or alternatively you've miss handled this competition. I have another problem with the vista question but i will wait till the correct answer is given before raising that point.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
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January 21, 2007
Mike - if people are interested in both products, and sufficiently interested that they're prepared to watch the videos, then I have no problem with them entering both competitions.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
Steve - I can't add additional clarification to the terms and conditions as they need to stand as a legal document without my additional interpretation. However the competition works exactly as described in the T&Cs.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
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January 21, 2007
Mike - thanks for your comments. The competition actually runs for a month so there is plenty of time to enter. Of course, we don't know how quickly the first 1000 copies will go. Bear in mind that some people will get the answers wrong (eg people who haven't actually watched the webcasts). Also, the webcasts were put on the site about 6 hours before the competition opened which should have given people sufficient time to watch at least one full track and the keynote. However....having said all that, many thanks for the feedback. If (when?) we do something like this again we'll review this kind of feedback to see if we can make improvements. Re your other point, only people who have been successful will receive an email, but I'll post a blog entry when we've done that so if you see the blog entry and haven't received an email it will mean that you haven't won a copy. Hope that all makes some kind of sense :-)Anonymous
January 21, 2007
With regard to knowing whether we have been successful in the competition or not; that was exactly what I was hoping for. Thanks for that. I’ll keep an eye on your blog for the announcement. If it would be helpful feedback to know how someone like me approached the event/competition, here is what I did: I am more interested in Office than Vista so I watched all of the streamed Office track presentations, in sequence, throughout Friday. I guess I was in synch with the agenda for the physical event. I made some written notes as I went along including, fortunately, the names of the external organisations participating on stage. I attempted only the Office competition question, soon after the competition opened on Friday. I then saw that it was possible to enter both competitions. Later I watched the Vista track presentations and finally attempted the Vista competition question. I must admit I assumed that, by then, a thousand people would have got the answer correct before me. So, for me, the competition had the desired result; I watched all of the videos and I’m hoping I’m in with a reasonable chance of winning a copy of Office. If I win a copy of Vista then I’ll be totally shocked.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
Thanks Mike, really useful to know. And best of luck with your competition entries!Anonymous
January 21, 2007
Hey Ian, I can also mirror mikes hope regarding the competition entries - it will be extremely useful if you were to post a note when the emails are sent out, at least then we won't be wondering! Thanks for that. Also, the video's were great - if it wasnt so far (and the event hadnt filled up so quickly) i would of loved to have been at the main event. I spent most of my day watching the various videos and found that they were extremely informative - programming really has changed a lot in the last few years with the introduction of .NET (in a good way). Hopefully i'll win myself a copy of Vista so I can test out the new features in my own applications. Regards, Daniel.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
Oh one other thing while I’m here, I was a little disappointed to see that only the keynote was broadcast live, I was expecting at least some of the Vista presentations to be broadcast live. Either way, I enjoyed them - but the whole "live with audience" experience exhibited in the keynote would have made the other videos much better in my opinion.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
I thought I'd offer some positive feedback here, there does seem to be a fair bit of negativity here (possibly a vocal minority). I viewed the keynote/Vista sessions on the day, and entered the Vista competition at about 5:45pm I think - for anyone that saw the videos, the name was pretty prominent, and it was a multiple choice answer to jolt your memory. I think the type of question was pretty much appropriate (as you said, a technical question would have been unfair to some people watching the videos, some parts were a bit unclear to me). I daresay some of those that couldn't answer and so wanted a technical question might also have objected if the question chosen wasn't in their area of expertise. So, I'm hopeful of the Vista offer, but was wondering, what's the best way to enter the Office one now? Is it OK to go through the competition, and just select Office, without it affecting my existing Vista entry, or is there a better way? I think this has already been asked, but I don't think it's been answered explicitly that this won't affect anything yet. In any case, many thanks for running the offer - and the videos were certainly interesting.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
Thanks for the comments, especially the positive ones ;-) Seriously though, we appreciate the feedback whatever form it takes. Jonathan - I'll check how this works and post something here. The terms and conditions don't state anything about a single entry only. Daniel - yes, I'll post a blog entry and we'll get something onto the site when we have the 1000 winners. As it's the weekend I don't have any info at the moment as to whether we're close to that number or not. And I suspect it will take a while before we can say definitively. As for broadcasting all of the sessions live, there were a number of reasons why that would have been difficult: budget, time to get the recordings available, and space in the rooms for the audience as well as the camera equipment.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
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January 21, 2007
Hey, I never really thought about the constraints around broadcasting live, I was just a little confused after watching the keynote then coming back after the break to find the others werent being broadcast live. Enjoyed watching the pre-recorded videos anyway, so thats all that matters.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
I enjoyed the videos, lots of useful info I'd been planning to look up at some point - the competition was a great way to get people to watch. Some comments, like others I was waiting for the competition link to appear at 5:30, but it was confusing that it (eventually) showed up in the left nav, but the main text didn't change. The text had changed before, so it was the logical place to look for the link. I think we all assumed that the 1000 copies would fly out in minutes, coupled with the few minutes delay that was stressful :). I also thought it strange that you could enter boths Qs, but there wasn't enough time to watch both tracks (unless you used double-playback speed in MP, something I didn't know existed until one of your presenters mentioned it). It would have made more sense to either limit entry to one track, or alternatively not allow entries until the next day. I realise you guys wanted the entries immediately to keep them as relevant as possible, but it did cause some confusion. Also, calling the 3rd party reps 'customers' and 'partners' for the two questions respectively was even more confusing. It's clear from the other comments that some people believed 'customers' would be ordinary individuals, whilst 'partners' would be the companies. ABTW, is changing the ticks after the initial entry considered a duplicate, or do you just loose your original timestamp? When you enter a question a 2nd time, your original ticks are remembered - it gives the impression that you're editing them, not submitting another entry. I missed a company on the Office track originally as I didn't have enough time to catch them all, so I modified it later.Anonymous
January 21, 2007
Reading about the differing combinations of entries and the resulting uncertainty that has been generated is making me worried. Clearly, if you attempt both questions at the same time, only once, then that is a legitimate competition entry. Similarly, if you only attempt one question, only once, then that is a legitimate competition entry. Any other combination of attempts, whether you select to answer one or both questions, gives rise to queries about whether the attempt is legitimate or whether it modifies a previous attempt or whether it invalidates a previous attempt. Ian, I’m not expecting you to interpret the T&Cs publicly for each of the possible combinations. I just hope that, behind the scenes, someone at Microsoft is analysing the various combinations of answers received in a rational and fair way. I’m also glad that it isn’t me who has that task as I suspect you’ll have quite a lot of competition data to process, as of Monday morning.Anonymous
January 22, 2007
Sorry to nag, but I posted a comment. http://blogs.msdn.com/ianm/archive/2007/01/20/answering-some-of-the-comments.aspx#ctl00___ctl00___ctl02___Comments___Comments_ctl14_NameLink Is there any solution to this? Thanks, Stephen.Anonymous
January 22, 2007
Hi Ian. Thanks for all the info regards the contest. hope I win! Something that would be really cool to see just from a general interest point of view would be a little behind the scenes documentary / webcast. Maybe its just me but I would love to see you guys at work making us all so wonderfully fascinated at vista / office 2k7.. and of course my new favourite word of the year! XAML! I think I will adopt a pet and call her Xaml. :DAnonymous
January 22, 2007
Hi - I attended the presentations in Reading on the Office stream. My understanding is we should look out for the 'Thank You' email. Have I missed it, or has it yet to be sent out?Anonymous
January 22, 2007
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January 22, 2007
Hi Sarah, I like the idea of the behind-the-scenes video, but we've probably missed the boat :-) It's amazing how much goes into the production of one of these events, and no matter how much effort / time / people go into making it happen, there will always be problems! Or maybe that's just me.... Anyhow, we've had over 30,000 webcast views so far which is an amazing number of people and, yes, the documentary would have been fun!Anonymous
January 22, 2007
Stephen - sorry, missed your question first time around. I'm working with the relevant team who run the competition to find the answer, I'll let you (and everyone else know) as soon as I get a definitive response. I don't think it's a problem, but I'll double-check.Anonymous
January 22, 2007
Same here..my connection dropped while submitting the answer, and without knowing whether my original submittion had been successful I had to sign in with my secondary passport account. I think that in the event of dual (correct)entries only one of them should count. This will also give people who came in late to the competition as chance to win somethingAnonymous
January 22, 2007
Hi Ianm, I'm sure by now you can tell us how many people enter the competition (bad and wrong answers). Cmom! I know you 'Microsoft people' know how to use SQL server to its perfection, so it is just a simple query! (right?) LOL :)Anonymous
January 22, 2007
Hi Bill, Although I may sometimes give the impression of being all knowing....I'm actually just one of the players in this game :-) There is a separate team responsible for the competition, along with external agencies. Plus there are a number of process issues - such as ensuring privacy rules are observed - which make it take longer than you might think. For example, there's no way I'll be allowed to see the names and addresses of people who took part in the competition. The data is treated very carefully. Which is a long-winded way of saying I don't have the info, but I know the process is underway. When there's something to report I'll post an entry.Anonymous
January 22, 2007
Oops! Having just read the note above, ... I now see my glaring error! I work in system requirements, and I missed the "partners" plural! I need a new brain! ... Having found a singular answer to the Office question, I submitted my answer. Now four days later I have found my "partners" plural answer.... I guess that's me disqualified! ... Next time around, revert to the Windows XP launch competition and please ask hard technical questions! I remember facts, and ignnore the wool!Anonymous
January 23, 2007
Dear Ian, thanks for the response, but I don't think I made myself clear. After attending the Office sessions in Reading, I was expecting to receive an e-mail. The instructions said there would be a 'thank you' e-mail, and we should respond indicating whether we would like a copy of Office 2007 or Vista Ultimate. I have not received this e-mail and was wondering whether or not it had been sent out. I know this is not you, so if you can give me an e-mail address where I can write and check, I'd appreciate it.Anonymous
January 23, 2007
Ah ok, thanks Robert. I misunderstood. It hasn't gone out yet, I have asked for an update. I would expect it to be sent this week.Anonymous
January 23, 2007
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January 23, 2007
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January 23, 2007
Peter-Baker - the T&Cs haven't been changed, this was there from the start. I'm speaking to various people here to understand how we deal with cases such as yours, if there's a way we can overcome it I'll let you know.Anonymous
January 23, 2007
Mike - emails have arrived via that route and we've run some further tests and it seems to be working ok. Can you try again please. Thanks.Anonymous
January 23, 2007
If I needed to login and complete the address form more than once due to my session expiring while I was refreshing my mind with the answers from the streams. Is this also classed as "Incomplete, damaged, corrupted, defaced or illegible entries"? I did however answer the question and confirm my email address only once.Anonymous
January 23, 2007
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January 23, 2007
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January 24, 2007
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January 24, 2007
This is mega cheeky- but. How come it would take soo long to get this item to the developers? I mean, if you ship it on the 19th of Feb, and the conditions say (I think) it can take up to 60 days (which generally means it'll come on day 60 :P). This means its around 3 months to wait, surely if your looking to aid developers, to start creating products for Vista, or at least looking into writing Vista compatible programs- you want them to get it before the customers :). Just an observation, I know its 'cheeky as' to ask that :)Anonymous
January 24, 2007
Any updates on the 1000 entriesAnonymous
January 24, 2007
I managed to download seven of the videos before they where pulled due to heavy load (and I've since managed to view the remaining ones) but I could not access the question page once the competition appeared, the redirection after login kept resulting in 404 errors for me. Concerned that I may miss the boat I submitted my entries via the volaunch email address albeit without the question answers (like the above posts I read and re-read the terms and felt my email submission was valid without the answers). Here's hopeing! As mentioned by others, the presentations are very informative regardless.Anonymous
January 24, 2007
I think that what Stephen said was very unfair... Anyone wanting to develop for vista or office could do so without those development targets.... Microsoft normally release 30-120 day demo versions of OS's and Office and this would enable anyone to develop in the mean time. (Ian can you post the links for vista and office trials?) Further more, I won a copy of Onenote a couple years ago, and although I was informed I would have to wait upto 30 days, it arrived in a short time. If it will take up to 60 days, then that is because they need to wait for delivery, arrange delivery and despatch etc etc.Anonymous
January 24, 2007
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January 24, 2007
Sorry if this has been asked/answered before, but which version of Vista is it that's being given away in the competition?Anonymous
January 24, 2007
Hi, Just wondering if the download links will ever be up again. As I can't stream the videos (having Vista Business N edition) and I would like to see the full videos of all the sessions from the day.Anonymous
January 24, 2007
Paul - I can't comment on pricing, mostly because I simply don't have that information and it would be wrong of me to speculate, or make any claims via this blog. If I hear anything that I can share, I will of course. Stephen - if we can ship them earlier we will, believe me. One thing you can be certain of - I'm very keen to get these sent out absolutely as soon as possible. However there are some logisitical issues (more than you'd ever guess!) which mean it takes longer than I'd like. Currently it looks like end of Feb as a ship date, but may slip into early March. Unless something awful happens of course... Christopher - thanks for your comments. Your joke was - well, I'm lost for words :-) Dan - it's Ultimate KevinPP - that's the plan. Word from the team is they hope to have something by the end of this week. However if there are any doubts about the download speed we won't release them until the doubts are removed. No point in putting them up and finding that people can't complete the downloads. That's not a road any of us wants to go down.Anonymous
January 24, 2007
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January 28, 2007
oops.... Either people have read my last comment and paused for thought rather than posting complaints.... or I owe you an apology for scaring off your viewers with such an awfull joke. In an attempt to redeeem myself (if case of the latter) here's another (Set in 2012)... 3 developers in a saunu, 1 puts his hand to his ear and starts talking... after he finishes he says to dev 2 and 3, "implant in hand to make and receive calls!" 2nd Developer, bursts out laughing and looks around and says, sorry - had retina TV installed last week, just wathcing a funny programe. the 3rd developer, not to be out done, ran over to his shirt, grabbed some toilet roll and stuffed it in his *(Pocket), he the proclaimed to the other two, "hang on guys, im just receving a fax"Anonymous
January 29, 2007
I thought the answer to how many developers does it take to change a light bulb is "none"...... It's a hardware problem ;)