This is Microsoft's MO, copy, make a competing product, crush the original producer and own the market. Or if the competition is willing, just buy them out, they are very aggressive that way. MS is a sales oriented company, Steve Ballmer is a salesman, not an innovator.

Companies like Apple, Google even our Ninty, value innovation because they want to make better things and expand into new markets. Microsoft don't have this innovation culture, so they copy or buy.

MS Office - MS copied Lotus 123, made it better and owned the market, MS Excel is a copy of VisiCalc. Windows 95, finally they made it better than Mac OS (7 i think) and cheaper too, Bill Gates borrowed a Mac from Steve Jobs by telling him they are making software for Apple OS, copied everything they could and made Win95, the Steve Jobs then was so full of himself, he didn't pull his head out of his ass. Even DOS, they wanted to buy CP/M but that guy refused to sell, so they ripped him off by writing an identical program, this is to compete with IBM, they beat IBM at their own game, MS dominated computers back then due to this. I'm randomly spewing this stuff out lol :p

MS tried to copy RIM (blackberry), Palm and other smart phones, I say copy here because, MS didn't create this market, other companies did, they made Windows Mobile and wanted to dominate that market, I tink they did at one point, but FFS, Apple went and made iPhone, and MS is once again trying to copy the way iPhone works. Windows Mobile looked or worked nothing like iPhone, look at the latest versions, they are totally trying to copy.

Zune, 5 years late, tried to catch up, had about identical specs at one point, then iPhone happened, MS just didn't even think to go that route of combining phones and MP3/Media player. These people are not innovators, it is not their company culture. Actually I think Zune is a cool product, but you see, this MS, they have Windows Mobile division and Zune division, but it never occurred to them for some reason to merge these devices, are they too poor to do R&D? jeeze ...

For consoles, all I know is MS wanted a presence in living rooms, and gaming was becoming a huge market, so they jumped into the fray. U'all know this part. So after motion controllers were made popular by Ninty, they saw 3DV Systems's demo of controller free gaming in a gaming expo (I forgot which), they went and bought 3DV Systems and started Project Natal eventually, to do what? Take the casual market, a market another company created, see the pattern?

Ok that was very messy :p

Checkout history of modern computers as we know them, these 2 documentaries are very interesting:

Triumph of the nerds (1996)
http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Nerds-Bob-Cringely/dp/B00006FXQO/ref=pd_cp_d_1_img

Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)
http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley-Anthony-Michael/dp/B0009NSCS0/ref=pd_bxgy_d_img_c

UPdated OP :

http://gizmodo.com/5402782/microsoft-disowns-manager-for-suggesting-that-a-mac-os-inspired-windows-7

Poor Microsoft Partner Group Manager Simon Aldous. His Microsoft bretheren is calling him uninformed and practically disowning him for the quotes he threw out earlier about Windows 7 basing its UI on the Mac OS.

A post on the Windows Blog entitled " How we really designed the look and feel of Windows 7" renounces Simon's quotes with a curt, yet harsh line:

I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed.

Youch. That's gonna be a fun day at work tomorrow for ya, Simon. [Windows Blog]

Copying ideas is not the worst thing MS has done.

The post above me (scruffybunny) gave a lot reasons why MS should not been respected, but the worse clearly being how they make business crushing competition.

If you're interested, read the (old) Roberto Di Cosmo's book about it : Hijacking the world, the dark side of Microsoft

Whats the difference between Sony and Microsoft? The overall success they have had at being assholes. Just because Sony aren't as good at being assholes doesn't mean they wouldn't have acted exactly the same in exactly the same position.

Quite ironic since you're as much a PS3 advertisement as anything else here.

I know you didn't specifically bring up Sony as well, but your singature brings them into it.

I have to agree with Squilliam. I think Sony's biggest accomplishment in the gaming world has been convincing their fans that they are the shining white knights of the entertainment industry. Nevermind the fact that they are a company looking to make money, or didn't even show up for the console war the first couple years, or tried to price gouge their fans. They are really no better than Microsoft. Most of MS's haters point to decisions made with the computing divison rather then the actual Xbox.

this is not new windows 1 was copied from the first apple OS and apple copied their OS from Xerox( Xerox designed the first graphical OS with mouse and everything but the execs at Xerox thought it was a stupid idea), but yes MS is the worst of them all

fixed

it looks like you are the MS counter advertissement to me ...

can't you just answer to his argue ?

oh, wait, you dont have any point to prove here because you completely agree with his point, right ?

Well after reading this article posted here and looking around the internet for more information about this (Engadget, Arstechnica, etc.) I get the impression that what he meant by looking to Apple for inspiration doesn't mean copying the UI. To me it sounds like he's trying to say that Microsoft decided to make Windows a more fluid experience through animations, fading queues and the way elements are loaded in graphically (first the basic frame of the window fades in and then the elements within appear). If you've used older versions of Windows you can tell that there have been changes made here to make the user feel as if the entire experience is smoother.

This is similar to what Apple has done with Mac OS since X was released. It's not that Macs run applications any faster than Windows machines (it really is application specific as to which OS runs an app better on the same hardware), but Macs give off a more user friendly presentation by making things feel like they're flowing more smoothly. If you've used Vista and 7 you can tell that the underworkings of the two are VERY VERY similar and give similar performance. It's just that the Windows 7 team already had a lot of the tech built up from Vista so they just tweaked it to give a smoother presentation to the user - much like what Mac OS does. This makes the user feel as if the OS is more responsive and more stable.

For example: In Vista when a window is still loading up you get that annoying glowing circular mouse pointer, the window that's not responding turns to a white tint and is pretty much unusable. In Windows 7 an unresponsive window will still show elements within it that have been loaded up and I've noticed windows going to that white tint less often. Small details like this are what makes Macs seem so responsive and stable - and now the same is true for Windows.

Really? I called them assholes, some advertising huh?

Now the question is what do you have to prove? You already said that you didn't care so why are you still here and apparantly still caring?

Time to make a bit of understanding :

- I said "counter advertising" and this is exactly what you did. I never said you were making MS "advertising directly"

- I said "I didnt care" ? where ? are you sure about this ?
but I didn't care about what ? can you explain to me ?
and IF I didn't care WHY did I create this thread ? This a non sense !
Try better next time.

If someone can bring argue and want to discuss they are welcomed.
Others people can leave.