Posted on 11/13/2009 6:35:36 AM PST by JoeProBono
A Microsoft executive was quoted in an interview as saying "what we've tried to do with Windows 7...is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics".
The comments, by partner group manager Simon Aldous, appeared in UK computing trade magazine PCR.
Microsoft countered that Mr Aldous was not involved with the development of Windows 7.
Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc said in a blog that Mr Aldous's comments were "inaccurate and uninformed".
Suggestions that Microsoft has borrowed technology ideas has been rife for as long as the Windows and Mac operating systems have been around.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
One thing nice about open source is you can “borrow stuff” all you want and not get dinged for it...hehehe
Nope. He got a tour of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, got a look at what they left lying around and ran with it. With Xerox's blessing, I believe.
There's no doubt that Gates got a chubby when he saw what Jobs did with it. The rest is history.
I hope they didn’t steel too much from Apple. I have a Mac, if I want to use a Mac interface I’ll use a real Mac. My preference is the XP interface, I turned off the Mac like features on Vista, If I can’t turn that stuff off on Win 7, I may hold off on buying a new computer.
Im a Mac owner, and use Microsoft at work. I dont care about the formatting, and it isnt a Cowboys/Redskins thing for me.
Btw, I hate the Mac TV commercials. They never talk positively about their products. ITs just make fun of MS for 30 seconds everytime. And that is supposed to make you buy a Mac?
And Apple stole it from the Xerox Star at PARC, and poorly at that.
Wasn't that the NLS guy with the chord keyboard?
Funny thing about that: Place it in the How soon we forget category.
i was working for a company that of course had a network. A combination of Windows XP and Windows 2000 machines. A certain machine was controlled by a PC independent of the network. i had to use that machine, so i fired up the PC that controlled it. VERY fast booting. Couldn't believe the speed.
Turns out that it was an old Windows 95 machine.
How soon we forget.
Windowing came from PARC, but the mouse was before that. In any case, Apple paid for the PARC visit. You can't steal what you paid for.
They didn't do bad if you consider that Apple crammed much of the Alto technology (which Apple paid for) and its own improvements into a box that cost a fraction of the Xerox system. The eventual commercialization of the Alto was the Star, where just the workstations were $16,000 each.
Nothing brings out the classics like wood.
At one point Xerox sued Apple for copying its user interface
Yes . . . and then withdrew the lawsuit when Apple pointed out to the new CEO of Xerox that Apple had paid for the right to study the behavior of that precursor Xerox system for a day, and use what they learned. The original Mac OS was derived from that, but it wasn't a copy of the code but was made more compact to run on the limited resources of a 1984 personal computer.This, from Swordmaker, who will confirm/amplify as he sees fit.
:’) One of yours?
I guess it crashes too much to get the "and feel" part, huh?
(Just a little joke to avoid going into the claims of Steve Jobs' ripoff of Xerox, or Bill Gates' ripoff (via Tim Paterson) of Gary Kildall.)
The strong impression I drew 13 years ago was that Microsoft programmers were untrained, undisciplined, and content merely to replicate other people’s ideas, and that they did not seem to appreciate the importance of defining operating systems and user interfaces with an eye to the future.Have times changed? And what is "the importance," if imitation makes you rich and innovation leads to obscurity?--John Wharton, October 1984
Thnaks for the ping.
Uh, no. You may be thinking of the Xerox PARC visit myth... but that was not a theft either. Apple paid Xerox 1,000,000 shares of pre IPO common stock for two eight hour visits to their PARC research facility and the rights to use what was learned there.
No, the Mouse was earlier than PARC... it was invented at Stanford by Douglas Englebart.
Yes, they did. A later CEO, unfamiliar with the company's history had brought the suit. But the suit was dropped when Apple provided proof that they had paid Xerox with 1,000,000 shares of pre IPO common Stock in Apple (worth about $7 million for the rights. Xerox sold the shares after the IPO for around $22 million. Pretty good pay for demonstrating their research and giving Apple permission to use what they saw.
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