Microsoft: ‘How we really designed Windows 7′
Parents arguing in public — it’s just embarrassing and it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for their kids. In this case, it’s the word of a corporate sales guy who made an off-the-cuff remark about Windows 7’s origins and the operating system’s designers now saying those remarks were “inaccurate and uniformed.”
Yesterday, Mac Blorge reported comments by Microsoft’s partner group manager Simon Aldous. He said that his company took some inspiration from Apple Mac OS X when creating Windows 7.
One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use. What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7—whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format—is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics.
Now, for anyone who’s seen or used it, it should be pretty obvious that the new Windows 7 taskbar borrows from the look and feel of the Apple’s Dock, which in all honesty is a riff on the old Windows taskbar. In a “one hand washes the other” way, Microsoft and Apple regularly take inspiration from each others’ products and roll these often less than fully original tweaks out as innovations and new features — call it a fact of life.
Did not!
Well, the Windows Team Blog isn’t going to admit anything of the sort and has fired back at Aldous with some rather insulting characterizations. Here’s what team member Brandon LeBlanc had to say:
An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was ‘borrowed’ from Mac OS X. Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed.”
Do you know crocodile tears when you see them? I wonder if LeBlanc and as team shed any while high fiving each other after publicly ripping Aldous a new one?
It should be noted, however, that Aldous’ comments are being called inaccurate and uninformed, but not flat out wrong, which might as well be an admission of guilt.
Realistically, from a copyright and trademark perspective, I suppose it was inevitable that Microsoft had to issue that statement. Nevertheless, what had been a simple verbal slip by a sales guy has turned into an even more embarrassing public pissing match, pitting different parts of the same company against each other.
Yup, you’ve really gotta admire Apple for how well they manage their public image. Microsoft? Not so much…
What’s your take?
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November 13th, 2009
Who cares – everyone ripps off from everyone… Mac’s never had function keys, then they got them about the same time IBM started shipping mice.
November 13th, 2009
thank you for caring enough to write.