Sears is selling several tool sets and toolkits with the “IWORK” branding. While the product listings may try to deviate slightly from the Apple naming convention by using an initial capital “I”, the branding on the individual tools is clearly written as “iWork”, an exact copy of Apple’s office suite. Ironically, Sears also lists the authentic Apple iWork ’09 on its website and sells it through a third-party reseller. A search for the term “iWork” places Apple’s product half way down the page in the #12 spot. The top 11 are occupied by Sears’ latest line of tools.
These tools are recent additions to the Sears’ catalog, so they do not pre-date the Apple office suite which made its debut in 2005. Apple has also held the trademark for IWORK since 2008, but it was for software-only, not hardware like these tools. It seems like Sears is just cashing in on the naming convention and possibly luring some Apple fans as a result.
[It’s worth mentioning that Apple has been on the other side of this “who cares if there’s another product with the same name?” divide before, with a rather high-profile product introduction: the company branded the iPhone even though Cisco already had some claim to that name. Except with iPhone both were phones. -Ed.]
Update: As Sears and Kmart merged in 2005, these are also available at Kmart.
[Via Obamapacman and Sears]
Sears selling a series of ‘iWork’ toolkits and tool sets originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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