Friday, January 23, 2009

Misleading: Incredible!

It seems that Incredible Connection has joined the group of advertisers who are happy to mislead consumers with their "Windows Compatible" adverts. My complaint is that the adverts don't say how much extra you have to pay, or that Windows is not supported on the Mac.
In my book (not a MacBook) that is misleading, not to mention bad marketing. The cost of buying Windows on their web site is not cheap either, and if your original PC came with Windows pre-installed then your "Recovery CD" is unlikely to work on a Mac, piracy notwithstanding. So the "All-in-Wonderful iMac" is not as "all-in" or "wonderful" as it would appear. I guess the "reality distortion field" famously associated with Apple has extended to South Africa. I also tried http://www.zastore.co.za/email_window_enquire.htm but haven't had a reply.
Update 26th January: Greg Hill, the product marketing manager at Core Group, the Apple distributor in SA, called me.
"The intention of the "Windows Compatible" decal on the marketing material that you came across was not to mislead the consumer at all, but rather to highlight the fact that these fantastic machines are also capable of running MS Windows.
In future we will ensure that the consumer is made aware that the price does not include MS Windows.
We will also takes steps to coach the retail staff to communicate clearly that a legitimate version of Windows is required in order to take advantage of this feature on the Mac."

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