Office Depot: Windows XP Apps Must Be Microsoft-Approved

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at The Inquirer, by May 30th Office Depot will only be carrying computer products that have been certified by Microsoft and carry the 'Designed for Windows XP' logo. This may be an initial glimpse at how Microsoft could introduce Digital Restrictions Management by ensuring all retail hardware and software products are approved by Redmond."

Let em run with it...

[TheCeltic]

If they truly enforce this, then MS will lose market share the way Apple did when they stopped being the flexible environment for users. Fortunately for Apple, they have come back around. What OS will take the position? LINUX of course...

Well...

[crumbz]

Red Hat 9.0 anyone?
OpenOffice anyone?

I think Redmond is playing the card of trying to keep non-MS approved (i.e. open source and other ISV) software off of retail shelves. However, with retail giants like Wal-Mart only concerned with cost and sales, this could prove a losing strategy....especially outside of the U.S.

My two cents.

Conflict...Hmm

[dmp123]

I detect a small conflict brewing between the last two stories...

Ofice Depot will only sell Designed for Windows XP products, yet the redhat.com page says RedHat Linux 9.0 will be available from.....(you guessed it!) Office Depot!

Well, this IS a turn-up for the books - who thought RH would manage to get a "Designed for Windows XP" certification!

David

Aggressive?

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I only use Windows when I have to, to be sure, so maybe I'm out of touch. But I sure didn't think the penetration of XP was that large, yet--is Office Depot really ready to sacrfice 75% of their customers?

I guess just because it's ready for XP doesn't mean that it won't work on older versions of winders. On the other hand, I see lots of users of win98 knowing what it feels like to use a Mac and go shopping for software in an office supply store...

Hint--they won't be paying $199 just to shop with you.

piracy

[obotics]

Won't this just increase the rate at which software is pirated? Although the change would be small, any means of restricting the legal purchas of software will lead more people to pirate software. If someone who wanted to buy a legal copy of a piece of software that wasn't "Designed for Windows XP" (whatever that means) and they couldn't find it at Office Depot, they may just say "oh well I tried" and pirate it.

Re:I'm sure everyone's knees will jerk.

[Computer!]

From the article:


Please be aware that Office Depot is immediately requiring all products that connect to a Personal Computer and Notebook Computer must pass these Designed for Windows XP logo requirements to be considered for retail distribution through our stores.


I have never bought software from an Office Depot, but doesn't this mean that no MacOS or Linux products can be bought or sold there? That's a little alarming.

Designed for Windows XP? How?

[zonix]

Slightly off-topic but, I'm wondering. How do you _really_ meet this criteria, for your app?

Would they ask to look at your code? :-)

z

Nobody else is going to do this

[n1ywb]

I don't have an Office Depot near me, so I don't know what they're selling right now. I do know that if you walk into Staples, Circuit City, or Best Buy, they have a TON of crap that "connects" to computers. They will NEVER follow Office Depot's example, they would lose a SHITLOAD of business. Do you really think that they'll pull every keyboard, joystick, printer, stick of RAM, etc that isn't XP certified? What about multimedia speaker systems? Are Alienware cases supposed to get XP certification?

Another good example is Radio Shack. Shit, are they supposed to get every FAN and HEATSINK and power supply Y-cable M$ certified for XP? Right... Office Depot is going to be the loser here. Nobody else is going to go along with this steaming pile of crap.

Microsoft Pressure

[richwmn]

I wonder who will be the first to come up with the leaked memo/e-mail/phone call from Micro$oft to Office Depot promising better discounts or support if this policy is implemented??

Re:Well...

[91degrees]

Walmart vs. Microsoft - Always interesting when an unstoppable force comes up against an imovable object:)

It's true. Both are big campanies, capable of and willing to use exactly the same dirty tricks as each other.

Office depot sounds like they're onto a loser here. If the customer wants goods that MS would prefer they didn't have, the customer will get it from somewhere else. It's in the interests of retailers to satisfy the customer, not their supplier. The customer is the only one that will give them money after all.

Mac Hardware?

[sPaKr]

What about Mac Hardware.. Like umm.. a usb mouse. Ya, that works on a mac.. then you just slap 'also works on pc's' in on the otherside of the box and let them come after you. So how long till the manufactures figure out its easier to put a half ass mac driver on their website.. and call it a mac product and keep shipping the same box? A bigger problem is that I belive the parent of Office Depot owns other retail chains.. will they be forced to change as well?

Re:No

[Politburo]

If that's what was happening, what Office Depot should do is refuse to comply. If MS pulls their products from Office Depot shelves, fine. MS doesn't make everything, and Office Depot can then go public about how MS is railroading retailers. Why make yourself look responsible for the action if it is another company "making" you do it in any case? If all of the large retailers were steadfast in their refusal to comply with MS demands, then MS would have the problem, not Office Depot.

Re:Nobody else is going to do this

[luzrek]

Good point. I would agree that the loss of "non-certified" hardware is a much bigger deal than the loss of "non-certified" software. Especially since the vast majority of commercial software is already designed for MS Windows.

However, I'ld bet this is the beginning of the end for Office Despot (err depot). For a while now they have been competeing agains such big-box retailers such as CompUSA, BestBuy, and Walmart. CompUSA is probably hurting their computer sales all over, but especially at the "mom and pop" business and geek level. BestBuy and Walmart have been underpricing everyone for a long time now and are probably killing off the "just need x peice of hardware" market. Office Depot has neither the knowledgeable staff of CompUSA, nor the low prices of BestBuy and Walmart.

All in all though, this isn't likely to affect anyone in the /. community very much. Office Depot, Staples, and OfficeMax have traditionally had very high prices and very limited selections for computer hardware anyway.

All a part of the Office Depot plan of

[perfessor multigeek]

"fanatical customer service environment at Office Depot."

Boy, reading that just about literally made me fall out of my chair laughing.

But to respond to your point, no, like many others, I see the hand of Big Daddy Ballmer here.
And even beyond DRM, and the control it gives M$, it becomes just one more barrier to fair competition. Who wants to bet that soon we'll see rising fees from M$ to get a product certified "XP approved"? And that many more small developers, software and hardware will drop out of the market.

I'ld love to believe that all those developers will smoothly switch over to Linux, Mac OS, Palm OS, and other options but I just don't think that it will work out that way.

After all, a small background project of mine is cancelled as of this moment. I had hoped to eventually get an educational history database of ours into OD stores but ain't no way I'm gonna even try to sell through this kind of maneuvering. We've spent a few dollars and a few hours pursuing it. We won't spend any more.

Rustin

Walmart

[luzrek]

Walmart is the least likely to fold under to MS. Walmart is the largest corporation _ever_ employing something like 1.2 million people. It also has more money than MS. Also, remember that Walmart's is selling Lindows PCs on their website (aparently at a clip faster than they can be produced) and other computers without any operating systems.

If Walmart and MS seriously butt heads I'ld expect Walmart to win. If for no other reason that it can threaten to put a complete Linux PC on its shelves for less than the cost of Windows XP.

Apple?

[mrklin]

Well, Apple software will only run on Apple approved hardware which is only sold by Apple authorized dealers. This contributes to how Apple can claim 'Everything Just Works' (TM). We don't hear the uproar about that. P.S. - I own an iBook and while everything does not "just works" it generally works better than a PC laptop (my previous one is a Sony VAIO SR subnote). And please intepret 'only' in the first sentence loosely, I am sure someone will find one or two exception out there but the above statement is generally true.

THis is for HARDWARE, not software

[frdmfghtr]

Please be aware that Office Depot is immediately requiring all products that connect to a Personal Computer and Notebook Computer must pass these Designed for Windows XP logo requirements to be considered for retail distribution through our stores. This change is being implemented due to our on-going pursuite to enhance and simplify our fanatical customer service environment at Office Depot. Products must be certified as Designed for Windows XP by May 30, 2003.

Please note that this policy refers to HARDWARE, not software. Thus, serial modems, mice, keyboards, surge supressors, cables, etc. could all fall under this category.

Does anybody seriously expect anybody to go through the motions of getting its serial cables "certified" by The Beast? Surge supressors? USB cables? All these things plug into PCs and notebooks, right?

Re:I'm sure everyone's knees will jerk.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you could just run the program and press F fucking 1 to get help, like they teach.

Shortcut in Start menu > Menu in Start menu. Much, much better - hell, with arrangement the start menu can actually become very useful.

I can start every useful app on my machine, and there are quite a lot, with five keystrokes - and it's all categorised.

[Win]-P-N-W-M - Windows/Programs/Network/Web/Mozilla and there we go. Very, very fast to type. One of Windows' 95's best features that would have been - until installers abused it.

This is by far Microsoft's sanest guideline for the logo program.

The no reboots on install/uninstall unless absolutely necessary thing is a damn good idea as well, as the locking was revised in 2000 and XP to make that mostly unnecessary...

Re:Looks like it's for hardware ONLY

[Keith Russell]

...so that customers aren't scared when they bring home their products and get the "unsigned driver" alert.

If this really is targeted at hardware (which I doubt, IMHO), then good luck to Office Depot. I've noticed an increasing number of hardware products whose quick install guides include a passage that says, in so many words:

While installing the drivers for this product, Windows is going to pop up an "error" message designed to scare the pants off of you. Well, screw Microsoft. We know damn well that our drivers work. We don't have time to wait for Microsoft to rubber-stamp them, and neither do you, so just click "Continue Anyway".

If Microsoft wants to combat that attitude, they're better off quietly tightening the screws on those hardware manufacturers who tell users to blow off the "unsigned driver" warning.

Hardware or software, if this is motivated by Microsoft, it can't be anything more than a trial balloon. This is most likely some middle-manager at Office Depot demonstrating symptoms of clue-deficiency. That's assuming The Inquirer report is accurate to begin with. I rank those guys somewhere between The Register and the Weekly World News on the journalistic integrity scale.

This is great!!

[Dolemite_the_Wiz]

I don't want to buy a CD burner that says it works on XP when it won't without having to jump through tons of hoops.

I'm having a problem with an MP3 Player at the moment that has a USB interface. If I move this USB interface to any other USB port other than the one I installed the MP3 Drivers on, the MP3 Player won't work. It's clearly a software issue and this product isn't cleared as 'official' XP hardware.

The Manufacturer's suggestion on how to resolve this issue is not 'wait for the next version of the drivers' but install the drivers on each individual USB port. I've got 7 ports and I'll be damned if I'm going to install the drivers 7 times.

Dolemite

Re:No.

[The-P]

This isn't a Microsoft decision, it's an Office Depot decision.

Although I have no knowledge of what this decision was based on, I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that it is probably based on back end marketing dollars. Something like if Office Depot does this then they get an additional .5% back on all M$ products they purchase. On a big scale this is in the millions. They can then use that money to market Office Depot, but probably have to couple it with M$ adverts. All in all it is very smart on M$'s part, but I'm sure we'll see something in the courts if other mass retailers follow suit.

Palm screwed?

[niola]

Judging by the text of the memo from Office Depot suppliers, I am thinking that companies like Palm may be hurt the worst. In the memo it says:

Please be aware that Office Depot is immediately requiring all products that connect to a Personal Computer and Notebook Computer must pass these Designed for Windows XP logo requirements to be considered for retail distribution through our stores.

Well, Palm and most other PDA's do connect to the PC. I wonder if this is also Microsoft's way of cutting in at Palm?

--Jon

Re:I'm sure everyone's knees will jerk.

[t0ny]

for example, you aren't permitted to have a link to your uninstaller in your start menu folder.

Thats cool; Im tired of start menu clutter, and they should be registering those things into add/remove programs, just like every other application.

Im glad they are trying to standardize the install/uninstall process. That is where most problems lie, anyway.

Does this sound a lot like game consoles to anyone else, with the necessity to be an 'approved app'? Not that its a bad thing to have standards enforced on third-party apps. Quite the contrary, it could potentially be another layer of quality assurance.

Re:I'm sure everyone's knees will jerk.

[ConceptJunkie]

I guess you're one of those people whose start menu has 3 columns and it takes you 30 seconds to find anything. The first thing I do when I install a program is get rid of all that useless cruft.

Uninstall icons are stupid since you can do that through "Add/Remove Software". Help files are accessed by F1. The only conceivable icons would be for additional programs, and those are usually unnecessary.

I can't stand it when a program installs all that garbage. It doesn't help me, it only clutters up my life.

_And_ it's now the Microsoft standard. Even Microsoft agrees with me, which is a rare occurrance.

5 keystrokes ! got time to spare?

[DrSkwid]

i type m for mozilla (in Unix)

when I'm in plan9 I right click any text that looks like a url, select plumb and get's freebsd to open it in a new tab in mozilla on my second monitor

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Is the commercial software business dying?

[mrkurt]

In the tradition of campers who keep asking, "Is BSD dying?", I have to ask: is the commercial software business dying? I realize that this decision on Office Depot's part to become Microsoft's bitch affects hardware as well, but it seems to me that the real pinch of this move is going to come most significantly to the software business. If MS can make this arrangement stick, it will hit the commercial software houses the hardest. After all, why would the Beast "certify" anything for Windows XP if it is in a category that they would like to dominate? I have in mind the things that Intuit, Symantec, and other vendors who sell popular desktop programs and have a significant market share. If they don't dance to MS' tune, then they might get locked out of the retail channel. Then again, that would be grounds for another lawsuit, which, by the time the court rules against MS, said companies could be out of business. Not that it would be any great loss in some cases...

One more reason to leave the M$ WinCrap

[msoftsucks]

As each day passes, there is yet one more reason to quit using the crap that M$ disses out. With the rules so skewed towards M$'s benefit, who can make any money in the Windows environment other than M$? How many good applications are going to have to follow M$ rules or die? Instead of dying, how about porting to Linux? When there are only 5 M$ XP approved apps and 200 Linux apps on the shelf, what do you think people are going to do? Do you think that they may eventually remove the WinCrap from their machines and move Linux?

Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.

Re:I work at the Depot

[chriso11]

If anything, this is just going to be an incentive for companies like HP, Canon, Lexmark, Epson etc to get off of their asses and fix all of the broken drivers that we see daily.

I respectfully disagree - if there is a subtle bug, that gets through the certification, then there is less incentive to fix the bug cause releasing a new certified driver is a lot more work now.

It's possible this is being blown out of proportio

[mindstrm]

and equally possible that they are simply tired of selling some stupid camera/mouse/whatever, and having it returned because "it doesn't work in windows xp"

Re:BS, MS has a BIG obligation for certification

[beejhuff]

Of course, this is a troll, but seriously...does anyone beleive that the cost of the Certificate is something that any business who wants to sell software should be averse to paying?

It's a small cost of doing business. Hell, that fee isn't much compared to what you will spend having attorneys / consultants prepare your standard corporate documents.

The other poster is right - if you have absolutely NO money, forget about starting a business - get a job.

The Big Lever

[serutan]

We may be seeing the early signs of Microsoft's stragegy to get people to switch to their new Palladium version of Windows. Think about how the Palladium version is going to be completely incompatible with existing Windows systems. Pre-Palladium software won't run at all. Documents will not be transferrable between the old and new systems. Users of the new OS will even have to buy new Palladium-equipped PCs.

On the surface this seems insane. There are 40 million people still running Win98, who have never seen fit to upgrade their OS, let alone buy new hardware. Microsoft must have a strategy for making the switch happen. Perhaps they intend to embargo customers who don't switch, controlling the supply of software and hardware. Forcing the diehards to shop at secondhand stores for things like hard drives and video cards might be the Big Lever they use to make the world go where they want it to.

How long do you want to bet it will be before non-Palladium hardware is outright illegal?

A couple of observations...

[KC7GR]

Well, I decided to try going straight to the horse's mouth, as it were (ewwww! When was the last time this nag saw their dentist?!) I just got off the phone with the store manager at my local Office Despot, and -- are you ready for this? -- I knew more about it (from reading the article) than he did! In fact, he asked me to forward him the URL (which I did).

This tells me that OD may not have even decided where they're going with this right away, outside of getting persnickety with their suppliers. I don't see it affecting "generic" stuff like cables, CD-R media, floppies, etc., nor (according to the manager I spoke with) is it likely to cause them to stop carrying stuff like Linux or FreeBSD packages.

OD is, I was told, in the market to make sure that everything they sell in the computer hardware arena works with everything else they sell in the software arena. Those dreaded "Unsigned Driver" messages are indeed a big sticking point. They're out to provide, in the manager's words, a "Total Solution" to their customers (yes, you can laugh now).

I don't dare invoke Godwin by making a comparison that I'm sure you can guess at. I will say that I've bought maybe two software packages at CompUSA in the last ten years, and I don't see that changing any time soon, especially since you couldn't PAY me to use X(tra)P(ain).

The only other thing I'll add is that, in the long run, I believe this will only increase the demand for older (as in pre-XP and, more importainly, pre-DRM) software and hardware. I think, once again, the used-computer market is about to see another metaphorical shot in the arm (at least from those who know what the frell they're doing).

Re:Or..

[galaxy300]

A mom and pop shop that goes to Office Depot for everything doesn't necessarily deserve to be in business. A smart mom and pop (and I've known a few) get there software/hardware at wholesale and sell it at a markup. I've even known those that shop at Costco and make a decent profit...

Re:A couple of observations...

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, what a moron you are! You actually bothered the $30k/yr manager of your local store with this trivia? And then you're surprised that he's not in on the big consipiracy?

Must be that you were still in shock when you wrote this crap, because in the very next paragraph you turn around and use his opinion as a reference.

And why are you bashing XP? Have you ever actually used the stupid thing? It's very slick at what it's meant to do. Good luck doing any serious development work in it, but it's a web surfer/game player/checkbook balancer par excellence.

Get a life, shithead.

Warning Labels

[Anonymous Coward]

I will not purchase any hardware that has a Microsoft Warning Label on it unless it also comes with some clear indication that it actually works with something else. That is a quick way to get locked into something that only has Windows drivers. Once the vendor decides to stop supporting it, or goes bankrupt, it may become a completely inert piece of junk. No thanks.

This has nothing to do with a preference in OSes. I make the same recommendation to Windows users. It is an easy way to spot the fly-by-night companies that think their hardware is so hot that we will happily use it with only their drivers, never needing any improvement over whatever buggy crap they've graced us with.