Amazing to think this could happen

One of the things I pride myself on and have a one of my business principles is staying current on and using the latest technology. I am one of the few guides in Maine writing a blog on his web site, have been publishing an electronic newsletter for some time and I produce my own brochures and ads on my desktop computer. I have been using Microsoft Small Business Contact Manager for a while now to keep track of my clients and customers.  My policy on software upgrades is always to wait a year or so after the release to get the newest version so that others find the bugs and help develop the service pack with the fixes.
 
This winter was time to upgrade my version of MS Office to the 2007 version.  Simple enough, I purchased an upgrade copy and was able to install Office without a hitch. It even pulled over all of my preferences and contact data. But when I went to install the Small Business Contact Manager, no luck.  After a couple of tries I searched the online help web pages without much luck. So I e-mailed customer support. The response was not helpful at first and the worst part was that a back and forth exchange of e-mail was taking at least 24 hours.
 
So after several days of not being able to access my customer information I decided to call for help. I of course got an operator who after taking my information referred me to a tech person who would help me. The first words out of this fellows mouth were that he would not let me go until he had solved the problem and I was satisfied. This was not the level of support that I have come to expect from Microsoft. After asking a few questions and trying a couple of simple fixes he asks if he can take over my computer. He gave me a web address and a code and what do you know he takes over my computer. I did not know at that moment but learned over the next two and a half hours that he was sitting in Bangalore, India.
 
So here we are two folks that have never met working together on a computer issue but separated by half of the globe and actually almost half a day. He was persistent and made several attempts before figuring out the issue and getting my software to load and run. As I mentioned the total time was well over 2 hours but the problem was resolved in a professional and courteous manner.
 
Who could imagine that a Maine Guide could spend a morning working with a technician in India on the same workspace, not just on the phone but collaborating on solving a computer problem on a maching in Maine.  I know that many of you will not find this to be completely amazing but I do and clearly the world is much smaller than I could have ever imagined.
 
Thank you;  Sushmit and Microsoft for being dedicated to standing by a customer and seeing the project through. Yes I am up and running and even after all of that I have to admit that Office 2007 is a better product than the previous version.