Don't let OEMs interject themselves into the customer boot experience

Date:

Synopsis
analysis: lock the OEMs out of the boot sequence and any future online services market, through the use of the registration process.

Snippet
From: Joachim Kempin Sent: Monday, February 16, 1998 10:21 AM To: Sanjay Parthasarathy Cc: Steve Bush; Bill Veghte; Sherri Kennamer, Kurt Kolb; Erica Anderson; April Olson

Subject: RE: Memphis Product Registration

i HAVE A STAFF MEETING ON WENDSDAY AND IT MIGHT BE GOO0 TO BE THERE TOGETHER WITH BILL.V PICK YOUR TIME 9:00-12:00

--Original Message- From: Sanjay Parthasarathy Sent: Monday, Fe0ruary 16, 1998 10:19 AM To: Joachim Kernpin Cc: Steve Bush; Bill Veghte; Shem Kennamer, Kurt Kolb; Edca A~derson Subject: RE: Memphis Product Registration

I’d like to do this today if possible. Kurt is trying to get a meeting pulled together for this.

- Original Message - From: Joachim Kempin Sent: Monday, February 16, 1998 9:25 AM To: Steve Ballmer Cc: Sanjay Parthasarathy; Bill Gates; Steve Bush Subject: RE: Memphis Product Registration

I agree and it is going late, again the issue is not talking early enough. Sanjay when can you meet?

- Original Message - From: Steve Ballmer Sent" Monday, Febuary 16, 1998 8:46 AM To: Joachim Kempin Cc: Sanjay Parthasarathy, Bill Gates; Steve Bush Subject: RE: Memphis Product Registration

Please meet and resolve this week with sanjayp if there are differences in view please air for bill and me. I am on vacation so bill may need to weigh in I do not understand why the ms choice is so much worse than the vendor choice for the oem or why involving the vendor is Os hard for MS this is a big customer sat issue for the oem and a big strategic imperative for MS so we may need to put in more energy than planned

Original Message--- From: Joachim Kempm Sent: Wednesday, FebnJary 11, 1998 7:21 AM. To: Bill Gates; Steve Bush; Brad Chase; Laura Jen.nings: Sanjay Parthasarathy; Bill Veghte; John Ludwig Cc: Steve Ballmer; Pete Higgins; Edward Jung; Eric Rudder;, Sherri Kennamer; Angus Cunningham; Autumn Neault (Womack); Rodney Viera Subject: RE: Memphis Product Registration

I do not believe the mail below reflects the facts. So I do not understand why a prevents b. We can easily, spec this out so that the outside vendor does promote our services. Nothing prevents us from doing so. The reason why we doing this is very simple:

Increase registration, make it easier for customers to register with us and the OEM in one process and not look heavy handed.

I need to understand why we need to own the transportation process - sounds like heavy lifting without reasons, but I am flexible. I will be back next week - let’s talk then.

From: Bill Gates Sent: Wednesday, February 11 ,. 1998 1:22 AM To: Steve Bush; Brad Chase; Laura Jennings; Sanjay Parthasarathy; Joachim Kempin; Bill Veghte; John

Ludwig

Cc: Steve Ballmer, Pete Higgins; Edward Jung; Edc Rudder;, Sherri Kennamer, Angus Cunningham; Autumn Neauit (Womack); Rodney Vieira Subject: RE: Memphis Product Registration

I agree with this.

Joachim - can we hold the line on this - its important,

From: Steve Bush Sent: Monday. February 09.1998 9:20 PM To: Brad Chase: Laura Jennings; Sanjay Parthasarathy; Joachim Kempin; Bill Veghte: John Ludwig: Bill Gates Cc: Steve Balmer, Pate Higgins; Edward Jung; Eric Rudder, Sherri Kennamer, Angus Cunmngham: Autumn Neault (Womack): Rodney Vieira Subject: RE: Memphis Product Registration Importance: High

Issue:

OEM’s want to replace the Memphis product registration process with a third party (Inte!liQuest) Windows product registration process.

Problem:

Replacing the Windows product registration mechanism lets OEM’s own the process and prevents Microsoft from building into the registration process future valued added Windows Services. In sum. it lets OEM’s interject themselves into the first boot customer experience and offer customers valued added serwces before a Microsoft proposition of similar services.

Recommendion:

OEM’s be allowed to define the client UI portion of product registration. However. they must submit the product registration information to a Microsoft product registration server using the Microsoft registration transport. It’s strategically very important that Microsoft owns the transport so that it can build upon this clientserver interaction.

Call to Action:

I only have a very limited amount of bandwidth to dedicate to advocating and designing a Microsoft registration process that is OEM compatible. From a strategic standpoint, it’s critical that we own the registration process as it’s our future vehicle for signing users, up for Windows Services. I see no technical issues to Microsoft hosting the product registration servers. It’s merely a matter of trading off OEM concerns against the strategic value of owning product registration.

Part of the problem is that the overall business ownership of product, registration is unclear. Several groups have a vested interest in this process working flawlessly: customer database marketing, OEM, support, product groups, etc. Who trades off OEM concerns against the strategic important of owning the Windows product registration process.

Background:

The product registration process in Memphis is strategically very important. It is the customer’s first impression of Microsoft and a strategic client-server interaction that will be the platform upon which we build for future Windows Services (Hotmail, Windows Passport, Licensing, etc)

Unfortunately, OEM’s are unhappy with our current implementation and want a third party IntelliQuest (IQ) to perform their product registration (IQ will replicate product registrations to us). While I agree that OEM's should be able to influence the product registratio nUI, I'm strongly against the OEM's posting product registrations to IntelliQuest instead of a Microsoft product registration server. This would allow the OEM's to offer competing Windows services and use product registration to sign users up for these services. The problem is that if OEM's own the registration process we would be unable to build value added services into the registration process (ID issuing, Windws PAssport, Hotmail accounts, licensing, etc)

I've been a big advocate of OEM's defining the client UI and using the Microsoft backend registration servers to accept registrations. This approach allows Microsoft to build value added services into the process since we're accepting the product registrations. The Microsoft.com team who runs these servers would instantaneously replicate the OEM product registrations to the IQ registration servers. The risk of this approach is that Microsoft.com is a mission critical portion of the OEM registration process and must deliver product registrations with no down time. SanjayP and the Microsoft.com team have committed to this service level. This decision is very unpopular with the OEM's as it makes them dependent upon Microsoft for their registration process.

Thx.

Steve

Full Exhibit
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