ArsTechnica slams the ZDNet report I mentioned yesterday about Microsoft giving free PocketPCs to people who write about Palm handhelds.
Have a Pocket PC. Have two.
Posted 10/22/2000 – 6:13pm EDT
In light of Caesar’s recent iPaq review, reader Michael Holst sent in a link to this ZDNet story about Microsoft’s recent “Pocket PC Wireless and Beyond” product demo where the invitees (all apparently Palm-based product fans) were given an iPaq, an HP PDA, and assorted other accessories. This gift is described in the article as a “bribe”. Now, for the record, Caesar’s review item was bought from a local retail store at full price, but I’ve got to say that the ZDNet article is spun in a pretty ridiculous direction. Sure, Microsoft gave out a bunch of stuff all at once, but the fact is that people won’t be able to review products that they don’t have. Products designated as review units help make this review industry world work. How many of you out there think that Ziff-Davis paid full price for every printer, computer, monitor, etc., that they reviewed? No way, buddy. The fact is, $1,400 is not that much of an expenditure on review products, when you think about the fact that high-end workstations and laptops get sent out for review all the time. Obviously, Microsoft hoped to convert these people, but to call this sort of product donation “bribery” is out of line. [Update: Michael wants the world to know that he wasn’t attempting to dis Caesar by sending in this link. :-)]
The only thing this article does is make me question ArsTechnica’s integrity. Typically, I assume that if I am reading a review of a hardware product, a review unit was loaned out to the reviewer and then returned. In fact most PC magazines that I’m familiar with typically have policies making it a severe “no no” to accept review units as permanent gifts (and I doubt that hardware companies could long afford to give every potential reviewer such a gift).
Given how cheap it is to reproduce, I wouldn’t be surprise if software is just sent for review without the understanding it will be returned (in a related venue, record companies send out promotional copies to record reviewers), but even there it would be suspicious if acompany like Electronic Arts invited reviewers to a retreat and then gave them $1,500 worth of free games each.