Microsoft Copies

[marktech101]

After reading that latest information regarding Microsoft's upcoming products (yes, they do usually make that information pulic), I was appalled. The title of the article was 'Microsoft games exec hints at iPhone rival'. Yes, that's right. Microsoft is, yet again, coping Apple. This has been going on for about 20 years, so why was I surprised? Because this time, it seemed so blatent. Microsoft literally copied the GUI right off of Apple, which used it first in 1983. Boom, 1995 rolls around, it's reintroduced. Except this time, it's backed my a multi-billion dollar copy machine, so it can't fail. Sure enough, Microsoft came to rule the personal computer industry. Bam, in 1998 Google revolutionized search. So, it was only natural that Microsoft should follow in 2005-6 with Windows Live Search. The only thing I think Microsoft actually invented was Windows CE, later Windows Mobile... Oh wait, Palm came first, didn't it. Apple revolutionized the industry with the iPod. Zing - Microsoft came crashing down with the Zune. (Microsoft's big innovation: Let's make them brown!!). I know I'm missing some other major points: Lotus 1-2-3 ... Woah, Excel!! Wordperfect, Microsoft Word! Apple text-to-speach - Microsoft Sam! And last but not least: Mac OS X ... (drumroll, please), Windows Vista!! The list goes on and on and is too long to put here; I'll just wrap up by saying that I was, let's say, rivited when I saw that Microsoft was developing an iPhone. One thing that money can't buy is innovation.

If you have any additional things that Microsoft copied, post them. If you have a major disagreement with this, e.g. you work for microsoft, let me just say you can forward your complaints to the 'development' (aka. copying) department at Microsoft HQ.

If you want to comment on or read my blog, go to marktechonline.blogspot.com

Edited September 5, 2007 by marktech101

[nitroshift]

... and you registered here to brag?

[marktech101]

Nope, just to express my opinion.

[nitroshift]

If so, I think you should read the rules here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=18408

[MrCobra]

Microsoft literally copied the GUI right off of Apple, which used it first in 1983.

It seems like you should actually read up on the history between Apple and Microsoft. Almost all of the GUI components of Windows was licensed from Apple. If you want to get technical about it, Apple is the one who copied the concept and design of thier early UI from Xerox. Apple has also copied various designs from OS/2.

Nothing about Apple is original and Steve Jobs is not god no matter what you may think. Here's a news flash as well....Apple does not design thier H/W either. All designs are done by other companies and all parts inside of a Mac are standard PC parts.

Apple Computer Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. is the most complicated software copyright lawsuit to date. Software developers and the Macintosh user community followed it with great interest. Some observers cast Apple as the villain, saying that after failing in the marketplace, it was trying to use the courts to corner the market on an idea that was benefiting the world, and if Apple won, the precedent would limit software developers' creative freedom. Apple's critics added that even if this were legally and ethically correct behavior, Apple wasn't the inventor of the GUI or the desktop metaphor in the first place, with many ideas taken from Xerox. Others said Microsoft were the bad guys, brazenly stealing from Apple's work and flouting the law, and that a Microsoft win would set a precedent that would allow big companies to steal the core concepts from any software developer's work and get away with it.

As it happened, the court's approach seemed to invalidate the copyrighting of a broad "look and feel" of a piece of software, though this was not decisively stated in the court's ruling. The fact that Apple and Microsoft had entered into the licensing agreement for Windows 1.0 made a large part of the case a mere contractual matter rather than a matter of copyright law — much against Apple's preference — so it was not necessary for the court to set a precedent in its ruling. It remains unclear what would have happened if Apple had acquired a software patent purporting to secure the "look and feel" of the Macintosh user interface as an invention, and had then pursued Microsoft and HP under patent law. Had Apple been able to win a look and feel suit, in theory this precedent may have hindered the development of the X Window System and other open source GUIs. (However, in practice the Xerox GUI would have been eligible to be considered as prior art under USC Section 102, and would have potentially greatly limited the scope of any such hypothetical Apple patent, if not invalidating it completely.)

In 1988, after the introduction of Windows 2.0, Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard alleging that Microsoft Windows and HP's NewWave violated Apple's copyrights in the Macintosh user interface. Cited, among other things, was the use of overlapping and resizable windows in Windows 2.0. The case was one of the significant "look and feel" copyright lawsuits of the 1980s. After several years in court, Apple's claims against Microsoft were dismissed, primarily due to a license John Sculley had negotiated with Bill Gates for Windows 1.0.

Edited September 5, 2007 by MrCobra

[jaclaz]

Hey, what about a new docudrama, after the good ol' one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley

"You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor—Xerox—who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set."

jaclaz