Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 30, 1995 TAG: 9508300064
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SEATTLE LENGTH: Medium
However, the number of phone calls from people who were having trouble with the new software also was staggering. From Thursday to Sunday, many people who called Microsoft got a busy signal.
``We're doing everything we can to help customers access the technical information they need and apologize for this inconvenience,'' Deborah Willingham, vice president of support at Microsoft, said in a statement.
Microsoft said it can handle 20,000 calls per day for Windows 95 and has been at capacity since Thursday. It has 1,600 employees answering questions and contracted five other companies to supply hundreds more technicians.
In addition to telephone support, help is available on the Internet, commercial online systems and a toll-free fax service, the company said.
``They expected in the early days that no matter what they did, they would get more calls than they could handle,'' said Fred Langa, editor of Windows Magazine, an independent publication.
Microsoft said the first four days exceeded projections for both sales and trouble calls. But the company never disclosed those projections before Windows 95 went on sale and declined to do so Tuesday.
Demand for the product could be hurt if the perception grows that getting help is difficult.
Microsoft's previous fastest-selling product, MS-DOS version 6, took 40 days to sell 1 million copies in 1993. That product had far less promotion, though, and there were fewer computer owners then.
Windows 95, successor to the Windows 3.1 system now running on 100 million PCs worldwide, went on sale Thursday in an unprecedented whirl of publicity for a computer product.
Microsoft's stock price rose $1.81 to $91.871/2 on the Nasdaq stock market Tuesday.
by CNB