How Not To Make A Corporate Web Site

Ok, Time to blow off some steam.

I think I have found the worst large corporation web sit there is.
www.motorola.com

What I was trying to do is simply find the manual for a Motorola XTS 5000 portable radio so I can hook it up to a PPP serial port on my Vista laptop.

Sounds easy, huh?

Well I tried the obvious, I googled Motorola XTS 5000 manual.
All the results are for very unsafe web sites for manuals, none of which actually have the manuals.

(Annoyed)

A few links were to www.motorola.com, but all actual documents were just marketing brochures with no details.

Their search function is so broken as to be nearly useless.

(Anger level rising, 1 hour wasted)

I finally called support and was told that all those manuals are on Solutions - Motorola USA
though "solutions" was obviously used as a euphemism for "marketing".
But I would need to register to get an online acocunt and it would take two days.

So I went to the site to sign up. Wow, I think the signup form was designed by committee where any field that was suggested was put in.

Ok, this is silly. All I wanted was to find an online manual for a radio. Instead I got a process that would make passage of Obama's Medical Fiasco look easy.

So while I waste two work days waiting for a simple piece of information, I noticed that there is a feed back email address. Ohhhh, nifty. So I careful write a short email about the shortcomings of the site. Yup, you guessed it, the email bounced.

So If it wasn't for the fact that my job requires that I get this software written...

Ok, I'm done. All better now.

Oh, and let me theorize how the web site got this way...
All the CXX managers of Motorola fought over getting their pet project in, and the web designer inside Motorola was ignored. Nobody any where the top of the organization has ever actually used the site to try to do anything remotely like what a customer would do. The web site is obviously organized by someone who is thinking about what they want the customer to see, and has no idea at all about what the customer actually wants.

TF

Three days later, after the weekend, yet another hurdle to cross.

This is regarding your account with us. Will you be reselling our products? Or will it be for your own company use?
If for company use than please state you are taxable. If for resell then fill out the attached tax cert and fax back
to NNN-NNN-NNNN

Aaaaaargh!

TF