Microsoft swaps race in Web site photo

Some highly suspect photo editing judgment is landing Microsoft in hot water.

In a photo on its U.S. Web site, an apparent stock photograph features three businesspeople--one white, one black, and one Asian. Microsoft's Polish subsidiary uses the same photo--except a white head is superimposed in place of the black person's head that appears on the U.S. site. The hand in both photos is the same.

Although Microsoft would be within reason to use a different photo on its Polish site--the country is very racially homogeneous--the company is coming under significant criticism for simply photoshopping a head onto someone else's body.

"In this day and age, this is shocking," wrote Twitter user Barry McCauley. "Unacceptable."

A Microsoft representative did not immediately have comment on the matter.

Here's the U.S. site photo (click to enlarge):

(Credit: Screenshot by CNET News)

And here's the one from the Polish site (click to enlarge):

(Credit: Screenshot by CNET News)

[Pete Bardo]

Ina, Do you suppose MS really photoshopped the image, or do you think maybe they used one of their own graphics tools?
They didn't even do a very good job at that. The face is pointing a different direction and the light source of the superimposed image is at a different angle. One would think MS had enough money in this budget to take another photo!

[tektaktyks]

lol,u right

[CPGUY]

I suspect it all comes out of the same design department, I mean check out this one ;)
http://img402.imageshack.us/i/microsoftlocalisation.jpg/

[iertry]

They didn't do a very good job. If you look at his hand, in both images it is the same skin color.

Why did they feel the need to do this? How does it help them at all?

[1missive]

Somebody in Poland must have thought the black man did not represent what they wanted to see. Hence, no blacks allowed.

[jaguar717]

Or maybe they were just doing what the race-hustling poverty pimps have been demanding for decades: run through the PC checklist to make sure they didn't leave anything out.

America: Woman? Check. Black guy? Check. Latino? Whoops, that's an Asian. Those aren't real minorities!
Poland: Woman? Check. Pole? Check. Asian? Ok I guess they're one of the "good minorities" here.

You guys pushed the victim complex for so long you can't really turn around and complain when you finally see how much of a joke it is.

[lccurtis1]

This is a disgrace and MS should come out with a full apology. Why in this day and age are we still allowing countries, individuals, and hate groups to look upon minorities (blacks or any other race) in particular as something bad? By having a white guy on the page will it sale more of MS products? I don't think so. The hell with how perfect on imperfect the photo was done, its a disgrace to even have to changed it to please a racist society of people folks you might as well face it minorities are here to stay, so get use to it. What IDIOTS

[lccurtis1]

This is a disgrace and MS should come out with a full apology. Why in this day and age are we still allowing countries, individuals, and hate groups to look upon minorities (blacks or any other race) in particular as something bad? By having a white guy on the page will it sale more of MS products? I don't think so. Who cares how perfect on imperfect the photo was done, its a disgrace to even have to changed it to please a racist society of people folks you might as well face it minorities are here to stay, so get use to it. What IDIOTS

[xaduurv]

Is it just me or does the laptop in that photo look like a macbook pro with the logo edited out? MS seem to like using macbooks in their advertisements...

Also, yea you would have thought they'd have simply taken a new photo to remove the problem of the light source, and the same hand colour. Or better yet, LEAVE THE DAMN BLACK MAN IN THE FRACKIN PHOTO!

[Mr. Dee]

Microsoft is the second largest developer of software for OS X outside of Apple. So, I wouldn't be surprised and he might actually like the design of Apple hardware but prefer Windows since Macs can now run Windows too.

[Marauder62]

I dunno, seems like a tempest in a teacup. Would there any fuss if MS had simply used a different picture rather than clumsily edited the photo? I don't think there would be.

[1missive]

I think it would be worse as it would show that this was a company decision and no chance to hide behind any excuse.

[ZippySLC]

Thank God we have the opinion of Twitter user Barry McCauley!

[tektaktyks]

yea thats very important and we really care...:)

[Mr. Dee]

I don't find the race swap strange, its called marketing and demographics. For instance, I live in the Caribbean, if you go to Microsoft's Jamaican website, you are likely to see black people there. In some ways I feel more comfortable seeing this than seeing Asians or Caucasians because I consciously know that I live in a country where the natives are black people and I expect the local employees selling Microsoft products here to be mostly black.

Its just like Apple using native races for Mac vs PC in the UK or Japan. If Apple had used John and Justin in the UK, would there be an uproar because they don't have an accent like people from the UK? Same applies to Japan and don't sense any form of racism, just plain marketing.

[lccurtis1]

Microsoft is to big of an organization to be marketing to according to demographics. All races by Microsoft and hence all races should be included in there marketing campaigns no matter the demographics. That way it wouldn't be any issue for any race.

[tektaktyks]

same time posting,not copying...

[blueoysterjoe]

If this is true, why didn't they also photoshop out the Asian guy? There are probably just as many Asians in Poland as Africans.

[tektaktyks]

what is the population of afro-polaks? i dont think its about rasizm,its about who they r targeting so the ppl who c the pic can identify with it,but some people r dumb and make a big deal out of it,its like the us photo would have an Eskimo and Aborigine in it,would that make sense for ya? ****

[blueoysterjoe]

i no u r think i dumb but if ur arument made sense, why aisian man in photo when no asian in Poland, does dat make sense for ya? ****

[tektaktyks]

theres a lot of asians in poland

[SpaceAce79]

I would have personally left it alone, but most of their target market in Poland is white polish males so it would reason to have a white male in the ad, I guess. Also, who is Barry McCauley and why do we care about his opinion?

[mjconver]

Yeah, BFD. I'm sick of looking at pretty models in everybody's web sites, anyway. I don't care what color/race/species they are. Thank god for Ad Block plus, most of the time I don't see any humans!

[man_w_balls]

Microsoft is always good for a few LOL's now and then...

[QMT]

http://www.microsoft.com/poland/businessproductivity/default.mspx
They've changed it.

[SeizeCTRL]

Microsoft should have photoshopped a monitor / power cable. Unless of course Microsoft is using some sort of wireless VGA and solar powered monitor ;)

[davidmcelroy_dotmac]

What in the world was wrong with this? That stock photo was clearly created to represent somebody's idea of covering some of the key ethnic bases in the United States -- white, black, Asian. In Poland, they don't have that sort of ethnic diversity, so it just plain doesn't make sense. What's the problem with making the image more appropriate for the local population? If a company in most of Africa had a picture that was supposed to represent locals having a meeting, wouldn't it make sense for at least two of the three to be black there? The graphics work might have been poorly done, but there's certainly nothing sinister about the idea.

[gaviidae]

What a silly controversy. Blacks make up a very small portion of the Polish population so why is it wrong to replace him with a white guy? It was a cost saving measure. They could have just taken another photo with Polish people but this was much cheaper. I'd rather Microsoft spend money fixing Windows than taking new photos to please the race baiters who get their knickers in a twist over this kind of crap.

[blueoysterjoe]

Why didn't they photoshop the Asian guy out?

[eXistenz2010]

why there's no latin people on this pic, why there's no arab people in this pic, why there's no indian people in this pic? maybe because they did a marketing research and found out that polaks wouldn't buy from blacks? it's a business, not a non-profit organization. if this picture was on a polish domain (.pl) nobody in the US would f***ing care.

[sghanna]

Ok Ina, I'm gonna have to call Journalistic BS on this. You can't use "wrote Twitter user Barry McCauley" as an actual quote in an article. Ya, normal quotes from people you actually talk to are mostly BS anyway, but come on. This is waaaay to lazy for Cnet or CBS Interactive. C'mon now, Twitter ramblings by fools are not credible sources for news pieces.

[danielszabo1981]

"Ok Ina, I'm gonna have to call Journalistic BS on this. You can't use "wrote Twitter user Barry McCauley" as an actual quote in an article. "

I'm def gonna have to agree with this.

[CPGUY]

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7308/microsoftlocalisation.jpg

[benjaminlawson]

Gotta throw my lot in with those already pointing out the absurdity in quoting some twitter user in a news piece. Really? Might as well just say "my mother in law reckons this is pretty absurd" instead.

Unreal.

[richto]

Not surprising that they would want to remove photos of obvious foreigners / immigrants from a localised website. A total non issue.