As consumers of technology, or any commodity for that matter, we place a certain amount of trust in the hands of the manufacturer or service provider. Technical specifications aside, we, as consumers, place a great deal of weight on the brand name behind whatever it is we’re buying – but at what price? Brand names are everything. Recently on Tech Talk Radio we spoke of the great brands of 2008, of which Google, Microsoft and Apple were amongst the top ten global brands. So, do we assume that just because these guys are top of the ladder that they won’t sell us a dodgy product?  In today’s cut throat world of retailing, companies need to maintain a good margin on products. When that margin is threatened by competitors and cheap imitation copies of products from say China and Asia, don’t you think that the marketing departments of said companies would do anything to improve sales and hence the companies bottom line? Or what about just unscrupulous companies that put sales before customers? We’re not immune from this sort of corporate mischief in Australia either Recently, what was once a trusted and respected Australian IT company betrayed local consumers by saying that their service was “everywhere you needed it” when according to the ACCC it wasn’t. The federal court agreed with the ACCC and found that the company’s claims were misleading. This week, the mail order computer company Dell was found guilty in an American court of false advertising and fraud. According to the court, the company engaged in abusive debt collection practices, misled consumers about the financing terms for which they had qualified and failed to provide consumers with promised rebates. The case arose after hundreds of complaints about Dell and its finance arm Dell Financial Services. As a result, Dell now faces the prospect of a huge damages claim. So what motivates the large corporate players to deceive and lie to consumers, the people that keep them in business? Is it the nature of just a few rotten apples in the marketing bunch, are they just innocent mistakes by ill informed individuals, or are the company executives fully aware of their actions, knowing full well that they’re stretching the truth? Take that into consideration when upgrading or buying your next gadget. After all, once a company blots its copy book, what’s to say that they won’t do it again? A few weeks ago, I had the privileged of talking to Rico Malvar, the managing director of Research for Microsoft based in Redmond. Today you’ll hear part two of our discussion Also on This Weeks Show We continue our chat with Rico Malvar, from Microsoft research in the US Adam turns his attention to the slow take up of bluray Gates promises 'multi-touch' Windows 7 Dell found guilty of fraud and false advertising And it’s the end of an era for paper airline tickets

[ Mon, 2 Jun 2008 23:22:46 +1000 ]

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