Software
Microsoft Exec Draws Fire for “Mac Look and Feel” Statements
Wow. Lessons in how not to open your mouth abound in the tech community, but this one takes the case. Microsoft executive Simon Aldous opened his mouth, a can of worms, and a world of hurt when he made statements in an interview that the design of Windows 7 was based on the Mac interface. Here’s the offending quote:
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. We’ve significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it’s built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance.
True, false, partially true, whatever, that’s just something that you’d never expect to hear out of anyone associated with Microsoft. The Redmond spin machine is in full speed mode trying to undo the damage and it looks like Aldous has not only been tossed under the bus, but is probably going to be buried in a deep, dark hole. As he should be.
Sumocat
11/12/2009 at 7:39 am
I read it as “Windows 7 is equally attractive to but more stable than Mac OS X.” Sounds like a pro-Windows statement to me, but I guess you can’t sate the fanboys unless you’re completely gushing over Windows (or Mac or Linux or Android or…).
GoodThings2Life
11/12/2009 at 1:58 pm
That’s certainly an interesting way to look at the quote, Sumocat, but I can certainly see that in the statement when I think about it. It’s obvious, though, this guy is probably being tarred and feathered at work today, lol.
They’ve both copied each other for years and years, and both of them took ideas from predecessors, which in all reality is a good thing. Find good ideas, improve on them by creating something new that in turn spawns more good ideas and gets copied to even better ideas.
Innovation should never be considered strictly as original, unique ideas, because someone somewhere has been suggesting these things for years. After all, if I had patented the idea of arranging icons on a taskbar for application management way back when I first beta tested Windows 95, I’d be rich now that Apple’s dock and Windows Taskbars do exactly that.
Ben
11/12/2009 at 6:13 pm
Damned if you do; damned if you don’t. Windows sucks because it’s not graphical like mac, and when they try to become graphical like mac, they’re copying.
Apparently, the only truly wrong thing is to acknowledge that your competitor had an advantage, and that you have made improvements to eliminate that advantage.