Yesterday we reported on a Microsoft employee who claimed in an interview that Windows 7 was designed to copy the “look and feel” of Apple’s OSX. Now the company has retracted that statement, saying OSX was no influence on Windows 7 at all.
Writing on the official Windows Blog, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc says of the quote:
“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.”
In short that’s basically “We didn’t copy OSX, that other guy was talking BS.”
We imagine Microsoft Partner Group Manager Simon Aldous is feeling a little red-faced right now. Spouting off about the design process behind something he didn’t design probably wasn’t his wisest move.
The fact is, an official retraction of the statement won’t stop many people believing its true. Windows 7 truly does look and feel Mac-like, whether that was the intention or not.
[via AppleInsider]
I’m glad they “copied” Mac. OS X is clearly nicer looking, so bringing that to Windows 7 was a good move.
They only confirm it by denying it… Why not keep your competitors in a haze and don’t reply on this rumour at all?
Microsoft couldn’t have copied OSX because Windows 7 was my idea.
@Martin, you totally jumped the shark on this story.
WHY WHY WHY waste your time on chasing your tail with stories like this?
You people give OS X far too much credit. The new taskbar is somewhat similar to the Mac dock, but mac doesn’t have *docking* of windows nor a slew of other features that Windows 7 has.
Now what am I suppose to think? Microsoft needs to keep their mouth shut. It’s almost as if they can’t let a good thing with Windows 7 go by without trying to ruin it. That’s the people of Microsoft for you.
Twinkle Toes – simple! It was an interesting story yesterday and in the interests of fairness I felt it deserved a follow-up. No sharks jumped here!
Ehm, Microsoft admitting that it is copying Mac OS X would have a lot of significance. The fact that they announced that later and retracted it today is amazing. Bloggable, retweetable and amazing.
Window management in Windows 7 is by far superior to MacOSX’s. In MaxOSX it just feels like the windows are gonna fall off your screen any time. Whining about how the one company copies some ideas from the other’s product is just lame. It’s a good thing for all of us users as soon as the one picks up some good stuff from the other, as I am sure that other, like MacOSX, did loads of times the other way around as well, be it from other OS’s, office suites, any application, service or even from nature.