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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Crazy idea - Razer mouse and cloud

It seems a day goes pass without some one becomes seduced by the cloud - just for something to store things is enough to be called cloud, totally crazy.

Now Razer Mouse has to be registered with its Cloud activation server before its full capability can be used.

I totally agree and sympathise with the author of this post in lambasting the Razer for their crazy unfriendly scheme.

Razer's Ming-Liang Tan's justification is every more questionable:
Instead of having mouse settings limited by the space in onboard memory, Synapse 2.0 allows gamers to now have almost unlimited space for their profiles and macros.
Do they really need unlimited space? Perhaps Razer should publish some survey or statistics to convince doubters. What's wrong with such thing as USB drive. How much memory are you talking about? 16G USB memory drive is as common as mouse attached to machines.

Why not have a SD Card slot into your Razer USB drive that the user can stash their settings into that.

While Razer is free to request their user to register but should not coerce, what I have found the order in the process some what unfriendly and draconian. Accord to Razer
Once registered, Synapse 2.0 works offline and never needs to be online again. So basically, a user creates an account, saves initial settings, and if there's no internet connection, it doesn't matter - settings are saved on the client PC and are not synced to the cloud. Synapse 2.0 works offline. 
If I have bought one of these mice, I will definitely be annoyed - what the hell Razer has a right to demand my e-mail address in order for me to use the full capability of their product. Why should I have to register & activated?

I guess by now their cloud server is full of fake information and disposable e-mail addresses for people just simply eager to dismiss the pest. I do that all the time after all it is a virtual world and honesty has not place.

Perhaps their developers have not considered their users' feelings properly. A much more user- friendly way is to reverse the order of the above mentioned process. That is:
  • Let the user on to the settings program - regardless. They are already your customer and you have their money, mind you!
  • On saving (I hope Razer has a way to save the settings) offer the user a choice, like all good user caring program does.
  • If they choose to register, they have the benefits blah blah blah - do your Razer advertising to convince your user to go your cloud way - but don't coerce.
  • Or the user can choose to store the settings locally on their USB drive etc.
I have to say, your current implementation is too draconian - this is the way take it or leave. Not nice and deserves the user's wrath.

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