PC World forced to remove ‘misleading’ Windows 8 offer?

One of the most important cornerstones of the UK economy is the concept that, no matter how dramatic and outrageous an advert is, the claims made must be decent, legal, honest and true. Paraphrasing Elvis, you can knock us down and stamp in our face – but don't tell porkies when it comes to a product offer. KitGuru goes on the trail of a special offer on an operating system that no one really seems to want.

Microsoft Windows 8 will be used by millions of people. Millions of poor souls who had no say in the matter, will have it pre-installed on their new PCs and then spend a few weeks trying to find the ‘Start' button or desperately trying to turn it off or create a desktop icon.

Microsoft generally bangs out new operating systems, good (XP and Windows 7) or bad (Vista and Windows 8) for around £100.

Unlike Apple's offer to sell you the best desktop operating system the world has ever seen (their words, not ours) for jst £13.99 – Microsoft values its work at around 7x that amount.

Imagine the UK channel's surprise this morning when PC World decided to start taking orders for the full copy of Windows 8 Professional Edition at just £49.99 inc vat.

If you clicked on this link at 12:15pm on Friday 7th September 2012, the offer was yours.

However, word has reached KitGuru's underground bunker that the UK channel, as a whole, has been complaining viciously to Microsoft – and it could be possible that, by the time you read this, a red-faced PC World will have been forced to remove the offer.

So what is the nature of the complaint?

Well, other stores are saying that the price for Windows 8 Professional Edition should be around £100 and that £49.99 is not possible. There is a version of Windows 8 for people who bought Windows 7 a long time ago – and have become unhappy with the easy to use interface. That ‘upgrade only from Windows 7 – dark times ahead' version could be sold for around £49.99.

However, in this edited screen shot (so all the info on a scrolling page, fits into a single JPG) – you can see clearly that the ‘minimum requirements' section does not say ‘Must own Windows 7 disk'.

KitGuru says: While we are all in favour of bargains, deals and specials – going with a price that could hurt other companies in the market (by selling below cost) is just not on. We wait to see if the claims of ‘dodgy offer' stand – or if PC World does indeed have a specially supported price that means it can hit £49.99 for a full version of Windows 8 Professional Edition.

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.

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