One possible explanation is that Symantec support reps are spending too much of their time trying to get users of older versions to upgrade rather than fixing the customer's problem. "I have six months to go on my subscription to the LiveUpdate service, but now I can't download anything from it," wrote a Norton Internet Security 2002 user. "Symantec's response was to tell me that support for NIS 2002 has been discontinued, so I should upgrade to NIS 2004! They confirmed by LiveUpdate subscription is still valid ... shouldn't they be required to support my use of the service I've paid for?"

Buggy software or virus updates also may be playing a role in many of these situations. "Last week I did LiveUpdate for my Norton 2002 Anti-Virus, which I have a valid subscription for until July," one reader wrote in April. "After rebooting, my CPU utilization now goes to 100% for about 2 minutes every time I go online, the computer runs slow, and I am now denied access to certain websites I use daily for my job. I could not even access Symantec's 'automated troubleshooter' link. Going to a friend's PC with the same version of Norton I accessed their site looking for a reported bug/fix. I was dead-ended with a message that support for NAV 2002 had ended in October, 2003. Their solution for my problem was to buy a new version of Norton. So what is my subscription good for? I was never notified of the support ending or given an opportunity to upgrade my subscription before support ended. Now I have a problem and they want me to buy a newer version of the product?"

Of course, having the latest version of the product does not in fact guarantee you won't have problems. "My Symantec Norton Antivirus 2004 won't open half of the time from either the icon in the tray or the shortcut in the Start menu," wrote another reader. "Also, I must do manual virus updates because LiveUpdate keeps returning an error. Their recommendations don't resolve it. I know they cut out much of the quality control staff a few years ago, but this is ridiculous."

Corporate customers aren't necessarily much happier. "I'm paying about $20 a year per head --- times 650 heads -- for the AntiVirus Corporate/Enterprise Edition's "Gold" support," wrote another reader. "For my roughly $13,000 a year, I get online tech support that promises a response by the end of the next business day. However, the web-based support has been taking longer and longer to respond to questions of late. I submitted a question six days ago and just got a reply this morning. On top of that, the response was generic and useless. They pointed me to knowledgebase articles I'd already read and that hadn't helped, which has been my experience the last few times I've tried online support. My alternative is to call Symantec's live tech support phone line, but there's a catch. I may have 650 licenses and roughly 600+ systems on which those licenses are installed, but Symantec's miserly two-contact limit allows only half of my staff to call for support. When we do call for support, we wait on hold for at least an hour before finally speaking to someone who can help us resolve the problem."

I have my own pet theory as to what the problem is: perhaps Symantec support is being inundated by users who've run afoul of their product activation. Lending support to this is the experience of a reader who spent several weeks trying to get Norton System Works 2004 re-activated on a system that had required several OS reinstalls but no major hardware changes. Getting through to Symantec by phone to request reactivation proved almost impossible, however, and his e-mails only elicited apologies for the long hold times. "We have been overwhelmed with calls lately," the reader was told by Symantec.

"I have no idea what their call capacity is, but it is pretty clear they are overwhelmed," wrote the reader. "Why in the world do they prevent me from reinstalling the software on the same machine? I believe the activation on SystemWorks simply counts the installs and when you reach the limit, it just won't allow you to activate again. The task then is to call Symantec, convince them that you are not using the product illegally, and then getting them to reset the counter. Not only is the expiring install count frustrating, but the long call waits to reach a person who will help, their refusal to reset the counter based on e-mail requests, and finally, the requirement to explain what I am doing in an effort to convince them I'm not a bad guy is infuriating. They are definitely operating under the assumption that customers are guilty until proven innocent."

So I suggest we operate under the assumption that Symantec is guilty of criminally bad support. How do you suppose they would plead?

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