Microsoft Confused By Race, PCs and Macs

Here's the back story: Visitors to Microsoft's U.S. site saw a stock photo of three business people -- an Asian man, a black man and a woman -- sitting at a conference table.

Microsoft's Polish Web site showed a near-identical photo, but this time a white man's face was superimposed over the black man. Viewers also noted another incongruous image on the Polish Web site: the white man still sported black-skinned hands.

In addition to noticing that the businesswoman's monitor was unplugged, astute observers also found another anomaly: sitting in front of the black/white man was a Mac laptop with the Apple logo airbrushed out.

While red-faced Microsoft officials were quick to apologize for not being able to distinguish between black and white, they offered no explanation about the Mac placement in the advertisement.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has been computer blind. In January, MacDaily noted that the company prominently featured a MacBook Pro in an ad for its new music-creating app, Songsmith, which, ahem, is only compatible with Windows.