Trouble at Adobe?

After being informed by the 'fine-folks' at OverDrive ( Story Below: 'On Outsourcing' ) that they were simply going to cut their losses and refund the purchase price, rather then track-down and solve the problem- I went over to Amazon.Com and bought, then downloaded immediately and without a single glitch, the very same eBook.

I had to guess Adobe was figuring, "How many owners of Apples new dual-processor 2 GHz PowerPC G5 are interested in Digital Media anyway?"

As to OverDrives International Sales Director and Adobes Investor Relations people, They have still to have return that first call. See Rubric Immediately Below.

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Footnote:I got an eMail a week or so ago from a staffer at Adobe, referred by Investor Relations, who is willing to look into this whole matter. After a thorough review the case was kicked upstairs to Level Seven Engineering, the Executive Team at Adobe Customer Quality Assurance. I have been notified that they are working on the entire problem and will get back to me. In the meantime I can only advise avoiding the Digital Media Servers, a.k.a. 'Media Editions' at Adobe until further notice. ('Email Me') if you have similar or related problems.

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All you developers out there- I don't know for sure, but it's a safe bet, anyone who can offer up a better service than Adobe ( Let's remember, last year they earned in excess of 1.3 billion US dollars in revenue ) has to be successful. Think about it!!

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Bad, Bad Blogs ...

I couldn't help but notice this article and reflect a little about the Singul.us weblog.

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On May 7th, after getting an eMail in HTML from
Adobe touting Adobe Creative Suite All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies I purchased it. ( This Edition has subsequently been removed from the servers, pending this investigation ).

At least I thought I purchased it. In a nut-shell -

It failed to download, and a series of phone calls, over twenty-four to date,not only to what I thought was Adobe Support, but to the Corporate Offices in San Jose and Investor Relations as well - All have failed.

I was at first given a series of, "Well- maybe the Servers are down." or "Maybe you don't have the latest version of the Adobe Reader Software." "Maybe it's not activating properly." Then I was informed by the Receptionist at Corporate, " Oh No. If the Servers were down, I'd know it. I answer all the International Phones right now." Eventually one employee, Neil, told me that, "eBooks just aren't as important as they once were. We've outsourced a lot of that to Media Vending a division of the OverDrive Corporation.

You'll have to contact them !!

I went to their Website and filled out the form. Receiving no answer I contacted what I thought was Adobe Support again. At some point, toward the end, I noticed that ALL email signed 'Adobe Support' was coming from OverDrive.Com to begin with.Talk about your vicious circles!!

In spite of several denials, " I see no record of a problem on file, Mr. Steed. send it to us again, would you?" All eMails, with excuses such as, "It must be an Activation Issue." or " You must have an outdated version of the Adobe Reader." All came from OverDrive, whose wholely-owned subsidiary MediaVending handles the servers, and it would appear, the eCommerce engine as well. At this point, Adobe, or someone posing as Adobe, was blaming it all on OverDrive.

To make matters worse, Neil flately stated that no one at Adobe could do anything to resolve the issue. No One. Period. End of discussion. Adobe a 'World Leader' with over 423.3 million US dollars in revenues this quarter, is rendered helpless at the 2nd level of customer service. Of course, If I could sell items and never deliver, perhaps I could make that kind of money too .

This is all the result , after getting sales-calls from Adobe for several years, of my finally breaking down and trying Adobe Creative Suite Premium. $ 1,300.00 later, plus a couple of books- Adobe InDesign Classroom and Adobe InDesign Bible among them- And I still can't add a few lines of type to a *.jpeg ( for starters ). Now this !! I almost find it humorous that I got an email this morning from the International Sales Director citing Adobe as as example as to why I should consider OverDrive as my ePublishing & eCommerce provider.

You can imagine my response. Like they say on network TV, "Executives from OverDrive remain unavailable for comment." We keep trying !!

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