Wow… Sometimes you have to be amazed at the audacity that some organizations display. Because of a manufacturing glitch in China, some video iPods shipped with the RavMonE virus, which affected Windows XP workstations. Although it was nice of Apple to own up to the problem that it caused, it was swift to backhand XP in the process.

Apple’s Web site included instructions about how to deal with the virus, but included in the explanation was this nice comment: “As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.”

It’s tantamount to saying “Yeah – we goofed up, but if Windows XP wasn’t such crappy software, we wouldn’t have to deal with the problem to begin with. Buy A Mac.”  

I’m sure the Mac-O-Philes are all having a good laugh about it, but is it really good marketing to slap the XP users that buy iPods in the face like that? I can’t see how it is. Nor can I see anyone who ran XP and got the virus saying to themselves “Oh, I’m glad Apple infected my XP workstation – now I can run out and by an MacBook Pro and not have to worry about this ever again.”

An apology should just be an apology. True apologies admit guilt and offer solutions – not spread the blame and point fingers.