FYI: Rosetta Stone Homeschool is NOT Useable on a Network

We just dropped A LOT of money on a program called Rosetta Stone to help teach french to the kids. We bought the Homeschool Edition, with Levels 1,2 and 3 French, and the Audio Companion CDs in a bundle. (And it was a bundle, let me tell you.)

I looked around on their website, and there is a tonne of information on how to use the Homeschool Edition on a network with “SMS”, their management program. It allows you to track users and lesson progress, and allows users to log on on and use the software from any machine on the network. The explanations and instructions are very clear, and are updated as of a few weeks ago. Yay! We have a home network and a number of machines around the place, this will be great!

Rosetta Stone French comes in the mail. I open the box. I take the CDs downstairs to install on the server. I look in the box again because there is no SMS disk.

I call tech support. I wait 10 minutes. They tell me that it’s all built in now, I don’t need a separate SMS install.

I try again. I beat my head on the desk. All of this beautiful documentation and none of it seems to match what’s on my screen or in the box.

I contact tech support via email. Their submit form is VERY broken, so it won’t allow “return” characters in the explanation of your question. I have URLs and references and multiple questions, and it takes me literally 10 minutes to figure out why this form won’t take my request. The error message I get cunningly neglects to mention that CR’s aren’t allowed. Grrr.

The response I get is this:

Hi [MrPages],

Rosetta Stone Version 3 Homeschool edition is not network-able. I apologize for the inconvenience. You may install the software on two computers.

Let us know if you have further questions.

Um. Hang on a sec.

I reply with a list of articles that seems to contradict this directly.

Hi [MrPages],

Those articles are for the Version 2 product. You have the Version 3, the newest Homeschool product. Version 2 is no longer available for the language you are studying as a homeschool version. The Version 3 Homeschool product is not compatible with home networks. I apologize for the inconvenience.

If you would like to return your product, please contact Customer Care.

I reply again, pointing to documentation that specifically mentions version 3, pointing to the fact that none of the documentation is labelled as version specific, and indicating my displeasure at the removal of functionality without any documentation of such, and in fact, with documentation out there that contradicts the removal.

Then I get this wonderfully concise summary of the issue:

There are two versions of the SMS, Version 2 and Version 3. There are two versions of homeschool products, Version 2 and Version 3. The Version 2 homeschool product works with both versions of the SMS. The SMS and Version 3 do NOT work together. The Version 3 product is an entirely different setup, and is not capable of networking.

So. You’ve used the same version numbers for two separate products that used to be bundled. Now they aren’t bundled, the old version of one works with the new version of the other, but the new version of the same one won’t work with the new version of the other.

Thanks. That’s brilliantly clear. Wonderful marketing, guys.

And, like suckers, we kept the program because it’s still the best way to learn a language. It’s so frustrating to be stuck in a position like this, trapped by incompetent documentation and marketingspeak into accepting less that we ordered. And just smiling and taking it.

Rosetta Stone, you have a good product, but you suck at customer service.