Unpaid time while Vista boots results in lawsuits
updated 02:40 pm EST, Wed November 19, 2008
Vista boot times lawsuit
Certain employers are docking their employees' pay while they wait for their Vista PCs to boot up, to the tune of 30 to 60 minutes per day, resulting in class-action lawsuits being brought against the employers, says a Tuesday blog report. The employers, which include big companies such as AT&T, United Health Group and Cigna, argue workers often go on coffee, smoke or social breaks while they await their machines to boot up, and therefore do not do any work. The lawsuits have popped up over the last year and are being handled by a lawyer experienced with cases involving long boot times.
As the cause of the long boot times are in essence the company's responsibility, lawyers representing the employees maintain the workforce cannot legally be docked for this. Las Vegas lawyer Mark Thierman is representing the wronged employees, while the six companies named in the lawsuit have undertaken the services of Princeton, NJ's Richard Rosenblatt from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius for defense.
The unusually long boot and log-off/shutdown times, reported as between 15 and 30 minutes, could be due to running Vista on slower, older hardware and/or the company opting to use heavy-duty security and monitoring programs as part of the start-up process.
Microsoft has recently launched a Vista Velocity program to improve start times with out-of-the-box PCs and has also pledged to reduce the load time for Windows 7 when it launches as early as next year.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2005
Thoroughly amusing!
How entertaining! There are many reasons for which this lawsuit should win. It is painfully obvious: company is providing a tool to their workforce, but that tool cannot be used for first 15-30 minutes or so. There is no way for any lawyer to spin it their way.
Perhaps when these companies begin to realise how much money they're spending on computers that aren't working (and consequently, workforce that isn't working), perhaps someone will turn on their brain and look at alternative computing solutions.