Secret Offer - Free Vista or Office 2007 for Developers

Im already getting a free copy of Vista and Office 2007

Mark Brown wrote:


Yes, very sorry about that. I work in the US-Sub so there is that to contend with. I don't have the budget to do WW campaigns. There is also a tax issue as well that I wasn't prepared to deal with. If a user decides they want to take both the Vista and Office offer it is a taxable event here in the US since the combined value is over $600. That requires a W9 that we send to the user to be signed and sent back via fax or snail mail before we can ship the second product. Since I can't handle this type of thing for every country in the world you can see where my problem was with trying to do this world wide.

Sorry about this really.

Hey Mark, i'm so glad you're part of the community as you give great insights, and this isn't an attack at you really though it may come across as that of which i'm sorry.

Microsoft is a huge organisation you have what 60-70k employee's worldwide.  I completely understand that you alone can't do the whole tax relief worldwide thing, thats not your fault at all, i wouldn't be able to.  But with a company so large with so many resources can't you phone up your UK/European counterpart and say "hey we're doing this cool promotion over here, i think it'd be really great if you could organise it over at your end and we can make it a joint WW event".

We over in europe see so many of these "get Microsoft * free when you watch webcasts" and then find out it's US only and we never or rarely see something our end.  it completely sucks for us and we want some love.

Is there a chance you could make some calls to your european counterparts and see if you can get somethig cool set up with them?

there must be some european MS guys thinking the same thing as you.

pathfinder wrote:

Same error for me too.  I will try again later.  There must be a database issue doing an insert.  I am interested in LINQ.  I saw Scott when he was in Phoenix and the technology looked great!!

THEY HAVE WPF!!!!

And I can't register for the classes!

No problem registering for the webcasts.  Im only participating for the historical value.  Windows Vista is already a legacy system according to Apple.

corona_coder wrote:

No problem registering for the webcasts.  Im only participating for the historical value.  Windows Vista is already a legacy system according to Apple.

According to who?

littleguru wrote:

Damn! Again I'm not getting anything. Is it somehow possible to get me a Vista? Didn't file any bugs, just reported them here, I'm not an US american (as some might know ) and I don't get a new windows mobile phone for a few bucks as I'm not US american again.

What? No, you're crazy - you are an American...
right You live in Florida, in a little town called Pensacola.

Heck I know your address, it's on Cummings rd.
Right, buddy, just have your Vista shipped there

Mark Brown wrote:

Yes, very sorry about that. I work in the US-Sub so there is that to contend with. I don't have the budget to do WW campaigns. There is also a tax issue as well that I wasn't prepared to deal with.

Every time a new US-only offer comes up, all the non-US niners here (yes, me included) start bitching and moaning. This is the first time we actually got a good answer as to what the problems are with doing this worldwide. Death and taxes, as always, are the problem.

Thanks for the straight answer.

I could have sworn someone told me he lived in North Carolina.  Could've been Florida though, not exactly positive.

jsampsonPC wrote:



littleguru wrote:Damn! Again I'm not getting anything. Is it somehow possible to get me a Vista? Didn't file any bugs, just reported them here, I'm not an US american (as some might know ) and I don't get a new windows mobile phone for a few bucks as I'm not US american again.

What? No, you're crazy - you are an American...
right You live in Florida, in a little town called Pensacola.

Heck I know your address, it's on Cummings rd.
Right, buddy, just have your Vista shipped there

so how many niners who aren't on some sorta FBI/CIA/INTERPOL/police most wanted list are willing to do a lil cheating for one or two of their good european friends?

if anyone can help me out it'd be much appreciated.

Jaz wrote:

so how many niners who aren't on some sorta FBI/CIA/INTERPOL/police most wanted list are willing to do a lil cheating for one or two of their good european friends?

if anyone can help me out it'd be much appreciated.

Interpol.UserWatch.Add("Jaz");

@Chadk: There's this http://www.microsoft.com/athome/techguarantee/worldwide.mspx Shipping costs vs. full price is pretty a good deal too.

we (non-US) really are second class citizen's then

of course, if someone here already has their fill of vista and is feeling very charitable I would be eternally grateful if they felt philanthropically motivated to pass-on an unwanted coaster! hey, i even made up a new word for this post...  

littleguru wrote:

 I'm not an US american (as some might know )

Godfather wrote:

Eh, take me to the America -- if you need a good lupara in America, take me -- I'd be the best man you can get.

...

America, America, va! take me to the America, G.I.! Clark Gable!

jsampsonPC wrote:

On average, how long are the casts? I cannot seem to register

Mark, am I required to provide my SSN if I intend to only get Vista?

No, only if you decide to go for both.

Retail on Vista Business $399
Retail on Office Pro $499

So either alone is fine. Together we need a little extra info from you. But given the value of the offer its not too big a pain I hope

JohnAskew wrote:



jsampsonPC wrote: On average, how long are the casts? I cannot seem to register Mark, am I required to provide my SSN if I intend to only get Vista?

What about those of us who make it a rule NOT to use SSN this way?

Mark?

The rule here is the IRS rule on taxing income. Gifts are taxed as income when they are over a certain amount. I'm not using this to personally identify you.

The J wrote:

Not working here, either. Fortunately, according to the offer details, this offer lasts until sometime in February.

Sorry folks for the technical issues with the site today. We dramatically underestimated the response from this thing.

The team is working very hard right now to get this thing up and running. We simply did not throw enough servers at this site to handle the http to https sessions that we're being spawned. As a result of the underestimating the initial response we also underestimated the number of concurrent SQL connections as well.

In either case, they are flat out spinning up a bunch of new servers and reconconfiguring some other things to help with the load.

I can't give you a hard estimate but I think things will be better by 10pm Pacific time.

BTW, the offer itself is valid while supplies last or until the end of February. I had to add the date in there just as good practice.

regards,
mark