I just got a tip from a beta tester of Parallels who received an e-mail from the company asking him to submit a review of Parallels Desktop 4 on the Apple Store and Amazon.com:
Thank you for your recent comments and suggestions to the Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac Beta Program Survey. Your invaluable feedback helps us better meet the needs of our customers by improving future versions of our products.
Submit a Review
Why not take your feedback experience further by sharing your experiences with the online Apple community? By submitting a product review at Amazon.com or Apple Store (Online), potential users can take advantage of an unbiased online resource to assist them in making a purchasing decision.
While this isn’t the sort of thing that Belkin has been caught doing in the past, one has to wonder if this can be considered distasteful. Consider this: Parallels is trying to get people who have a positive bias towards Parallels desktop to write reviews that help to alter the perception of the software in the minds of end users. If you take into consideration that Parallels Desktop 4 has had some rather negative press on a variety of fronts that likely affects how the product is perceived by end users, this might be seen as an attempt as trying to spin doctor things in their favor.
What do you think? Is Parallels doing something wrong, or are they justified in doing this? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. Oh, if anybody from Parallels wants to comment about this, feel free to do so. I’d love to hear your side of the story.