Chuckle! How you wiggle and twist and turn to get yourself out of the hole you dug yourself into. You in effect claimed that all.these articles in the tech and business press about Apple copying Microsoft are written by writers in the pay of Microsoft. In effect you are saying that highly reputable publications with histories of being tough on Microsoft, who are in fierce competition with each other, somehow got together, took money from Microsoft, then decided to write similar articles about Apple ripping off Microsoft Surface, just in time for the Surface 4 launch, WITHOUT ONE IOTA OF PROOF. These are very serious allegations. So why don't you produce your proof in open forum for everyone to see? I want dates and times and who did the paying of the bribes from Microsoft how much money was paid. who received monies, the works.
Do you have any clue about how such things work? I don't think you do. . . and some are getting spiffs from Microsoft. Bribes? Don't make me laugh. These "journalists" aren't public officials. . . or even very honest.
Look to Samsung's marketing budget in 2013 as an example. . . over $14 Billion, yet only $4.3 Billion was actually spent for actual "advertising". . . the rest was spent on other forms of marketing, including paid posting in social media, getting bloggers, editorials, and reviewers to write about their products, etc.
While Microsoft did not invent that form of marketing they did make the most effective use of it and they have not forsaken it. Some of the biggest names in tech have admitted receiving such pay from Microsoft. Look at Paul Thurrott and his SuperSite for Windows. . . he admitted he was on Microsoft's payroll while writing for newspapers, magazines, and appearing on forums as a supposed impartial JOURNALIST. This is not up for doubt. Thurrott admitted it. . . and he's not alone. Then there's Daniel Lyons, the "journalist" behind "The fake Steve Jobs", knocking Apple and Apple products under an alias, who also toed the Microsoft company line during the SCO trials bad mouthing Linux, who received case lots of Microsoft products for "review" until his sugar daddy cut off the funding . . . and his history of being a paid shill for Wired while working for Forbes. Tsk Tsk Tsk. . . Suddenly he retired the "Fake Steve Jobs" and stopped his negativity toward Linux and was quoted as saying ". . . it was fun, but I sure miss the money!" These things are history of this industry and they STILL happen.
There are many ways of compensating these sites and writers. . . write what we want and you get more advertising or at our highest rates. Another good one is Microsoft sends the writer a "loaner" review product, say a new Microsoft Surface 4, and if the writer does what MS provides hints or using Microsoft's outline, Microsoft just never asks for it back. Or, the author writes what is discussed, and WOW! a one-on-one interview with the CEO is promised. . . but there is certainly an echo-chamber effect in the tech press. All of these things happen.
When multiple sites within a few days of each other pick up the same meme, especially when it is demonstrably not true, it's not independent thought or criticism; it's a press release, which they are merely filing off the serial numbers and repeating. . . and they are being compensated in some way for printing, posting, or otherwise publishing this phony claim. When it comes out within a week of a major product release which will benefit from denigrating a competing makers product and extolling the newer product, then its purpose is to generate public buzz for the upcoming new product and side-track potential sales of the competitor's product. That, SmokingJoe, is MARKETING, not serious product review or even a comparison.
If there were any legitimacy to this meme, these "authors" would have been making these copying claims when Apple debuted the iPad Pro more strongly a month ago, not all of them just a week before the release of Microsoft's new Surface 4.
You can "chuckle" all you like . . . but I do know what I am talking about. These guys are publishing the tune that Microsoft's is conducting.