Moving my parents to iCloud

Lets briefly start at the beginning. In 2004 I purchased my parents the first Intel iMac. This was when I was still an Apple person, singing all the great things Apple could do. I recruited everyone I could to Mac. I was a proud .mac subscriber, convincing everyone I could in it's value. I drank and loved the Kool Aid.

My parents subscribed to .mac and paid for it each year until it was discontinued last year. That's a total of $700 they spent on just having simple, reliable, and supported e-mail. In hindsight it probably was a mistake not getting them on gmail when looking at that amount of money spent. In fairness, they did use things other than e-mail, but that was the prime activity.

They received an e-mail today notifying them that they had to move to iCloud by April 1 or they will be unable to use their e-mail. I get called asking to help them set this up. I assume it'll be the same as when they were "switched" to mobile me. Open up the e-mail, click next a few times, and nothing changes.

HA! Here comes the fun.

You are told that you need to be on OS 10.7.2 to use iCloud mail. This can't be right, they are just using an IMAP e-mail server, that shouldn't require a new OS. I start an online chat with Apple support. That chat transcript below. Removed my mom's name as well as the Apple reps name.

Me:
my question is i have os 10.5.8. in order to move to icloud it states my mac must be running 10.7.2. is this required to continue using my .mac or .me mail?

Apple:
Ok, so just to verify, you would like to know if you can move to iCloud with your current operating system. Is this correct?

Ce:
if possible, yes. my mac is older (2008) and i do not believe the new os will run very well on it. i am willing to upgrade if it's my only option, but would prefer to keep things status quo
is at all possible.

Apple:
Ok, I understand the importance of being able to know if you are able to move your current operating system. At the present time iCloud only supports Lion 10.7. You can still however access your account online at www.iCloud.com or any device running iOS5. Here is an article that provides more information: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4929?viewlocale=en_US

Me:
thank you. i will look that over. so in summary, i can upgrade to icloud, however the only way i will be able to check my email is to use a web browser. i will not be able to use mail.app anymore.

Apple:
Yes, that is correct. Just in case you would like to upgrade your operating system, here is some information on that.http://www.apple.com/macosx/how-to-buy/

So as a reward for being a loyal paying .Mac subscriber you're told that you need to purchase new software and / or a new mac (I have relatives using .Mac on G3 computers.) To make matters even worse, this isn't even accurate. You can configure any e-mail application to work with iCloud without a new OS.

Occasionally feel remorse for turning on a company that I loved so dearly for so long, but dammit if they don't deserve it. How many extra computers will be sold at Apple stores this week by unassuming people whose only fault was trusting Apple to not take advantage of them. Bastards.