Logitech enjoys a position in the field of computer mice similar to the position Microsoft has in the software world. Oh, not as all-encompassing, perhaps, but there are an awful lot of Logitech mice out there and it forms the only serious presence in that area besides Microsoft. Our brother-in-arms Furo had some frustrations with Logitech drivers, but at least the company didn’t try to blow him off.

That’s why I feel that it has a more-than-usual responsibility to keep its mice from annoying the heck out of me. This is a tale of a mouse driver gone bad. Specifically its SetPoint drivers. This situation has probably been going on for some time, but I’ve never seen mention of it elsewhere.

Let’s get down to business: The current drivers for the MX1000 laser mouse are buggy. When you’re using the mouse and you have Outlook 2003 open, pane scrolling goes haywire. In Outlook, when you hover the mouse over the reading pane, for instance, and roll the scroll wheel, that pane should scroll. Same for when you hold the mouse pointer over the mail list pane. The problem with the Logitech drivers is that BOTH panes scroll at once when your pointer is over the reading pane. Not good.

The real gripe I have here is not that there is a bug that Logitech needs to fix as soon as possible, but its response to my reporting this problem. To put it simply, it resorted to the ancient ‘Not me! It’s THEIR problem!’ defense. Well, folks, it just doesn’t fly. Companies have been trying to duck responsibility for many years by pointing fingers at the other camp and it’s about time that it STOPS. Grow up! If your hardware drivers aren’t working in a major software application, then don’t tell me that it’s the software publisher’s fault!

Here’s an edited copy of the e-mail I got from Logitech “tech” support on the issue:

Dear Jeff,

Thank you for your recent inquiry about your Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse. I understand that the scrolling of Logitech MX1000 mouse is not working properly. If you are experiencing issues with the Logitech device in a particular application, test the device in another application to confirm if the issue is specific to that application. If the Logitech device functions properly in the
other application, then the issue may be directly related to the application that you are using the device in. If so, please contact the manufacturer of that software for application specific troubleshooting.

And my response to Logitech:

As far as I can tell, the problem is confined to Microsoft Outlook 2003. Now, if YOU would like to call Microsoft and tell it that it is responsible for the problem with YOUR hardware, please do so. Personally, I have enough people laugh at me in the course of a day. From my point of view, it’s YOUR hardware and YOUR driver that isn’t working right. Either you people made an error while
coding the driver or the application has changed (due to updates, etc.) and you people haven’t kept pace. Somehow, I can’t quite see me telling MICROSOFT that it’s responsible for keeping your drivers working. Can you? In either case, I have no intention of telling Microsoft to fix its application when it isn’t broken.

Let’s hope Logitech will stand up and simply say ‘Oh, we goofed. We’ll fix it as as soon as possible.’ Anything less is (as the Super Nanny says) unacceptable.