Microsoft’s group vice president for platforms, Jim Allchin, the top executive responsible for Longhorn has participated in an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Todd Bishop. Allchin talked about Apple in a portion of the interview:
Q: What do you say when Apple says it’s offering features in its new Tiger operating system that you won’t have until next year in Longhorn?
Allchin: I think Apple is a very innovative company, first comment. I think they do a lot of good stuff. I do believe they became fixated on Longhorn after we did the PDC (an October 2003 conference where Microsoft initially showed Longhorn capabilities, including fast file searching).
It’s actually fairly nice to see, because in this particular case I think they saw something that we were doing that was pretty cool. I think Steve (Jobs, Apple’s CEO) would also say this thing about fast user switching, when he saw that in Windows XP, he said, ahh, that was pretty nice, and they ended up adding that. They did it in a nicer visual way than what we did but we put the concept in there first. I think Tiger is a very nice system, and I think what they’re doing is very nice integrated search, and that’s pretty much what we had shown at the PDC in 2003.
We’ve learned a little bit more that you have to slice and dice the data, and seeing visualizations of the data is really important. But frankly it’s only one little piece of what’s in Longhorn. … We didn’t show any of the security stuff, the safety stuff … There is a question of how much we should show, so that they can try to copy again.
Q: Is that a concern?
Allchin: Oh, a little bit, a little bit.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The pressure has obviously gotten to Allchin; he’s lost it. Microsoft is like floundering and gasping like a fish out of water. This is fun! 
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“In Winblows, a user can go to the Start menu and log off, and another user can log on.
In OSX, the user remains logged on, another user can log on, but the big difference is that both users can remain logged on. You can seemlessly switch between users, and it happens in a much more abrievated time line. Hence the name ‘fast user switching’ “
Actually, a Windws patcher goes to the start menu, clicks ‘log off’. They get a dialog that has the options ‘log off’ and ‘switch user’. They click ‘switch user’ and get the log in screen (with their current user still active). Then, they can click the user they want and use that account. Both with Win XP and OS X Panther can have multiple users logged in, it’s just that in OS X, the user can select the name in the top right corner, select the user they want to switch to and go. – a much faster process.
mrw0lf –
XP has user-switching where both users stay logged on. Has since its release.
Artisticulated –
I think I said the GUI, not the desktop metaphor.
WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!
THIS GUY HAS BEEN DRINKING THE M$ COOLADE FOR TOO LONG!
If I was him I would sack the OS programmers because with all M$’s billions they still cant create anything usable or diferent.
Regarding Apple copying M$… ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT!
My message to all M$ employees is forget Longhorn and get a mac!
First Thurrott starts bashing windows and now Allchin keeps popping up to say that Apple is copying Microsoft??? We truly ARE in Bizarro World, lately!
“Just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
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At the end of the day it ALL comes down to this…
TIGER IS AVAILABLE NOW!
LONGHORN ISNT!
Simple as that – all this bullshit spreading vapouware propaganda from Microsoft CANNOT change yhis very simple and REAL fact.
Admit it Microsoft – YOU’RE CRAP!
Steve Jobs himself admitted that Fast User Switching was a feature first found in Windows. Yet, which way the balance goes with “borrowed” ideas is quite obvious! =)
If Apple is copying MS Apple must have invented a time machine.
Go Apple!
“We didn’t show any of the security stuff, the safety stuff … There is a question of how much we should show, so that they can try to copy again.”
Good Lord…. if Apple DID copy any of the “safety stuff” then OSX would be eaten up with viruses just like Windows.
PC Apologist,
When did MS come out with the GUI before Apple? What were you running in 1984???
“We didn’t show any of the security stuff, the safety stuff … There is a question of how much we should show, so that they can try to copy again.”
Right. Apple needs to copy MS security/safety…cuz they’re really lagging there.
Another Micros@#t whore!!!! How can one copy something has not come out and won’t be out in almost two years? Such Moron!!!!!
Fun? This is freaking fantastic! Die Microsoft DIE!!!!!!!!
I saw their keynote, it was a flash back to when his Steveyness first showed the dazziling affects of
Quartz Extweeemmm! to the Mac faithful. It let us know just how insignificant longhornzzz was. Microsoft is DEAD!!!
it’s a bit gruesome, but shouldn’t M$ change the nickname of their next gen OS to stillborn?
I didn’t know it was possible to copy something that isn’t out. Is that like musicians using parts of song not out yet to make their music?
Wait, that’s being innovative. My bad.
“Tiger is a very nice system, and I think what they’re doing is very nice integrated search, and that’s pretty much what we had shown at the PDC in 2003.”
This guy is on crack. They (MSFT) showed it in October 2003 and it shows up at the next WWDC in June of 2004 (about 8 months), and Apple COPIED them? Man I want the drugs this guy is using…
mrw0lf is half-right and PC Apologist is half-right. If you authenticate XP against a Windows XP server then Fast User Switching is disabled, thus most people who use XP at work will never experience Fast User Switching.
Sorry, PC Apologist, but Apple got the Graphical User Interface out the door much faster than Micro$oft. 1983, Apple had the Lisa. 1984, Apple came out with the Mac. The first Windows rolled out the door in 1985. Windows 2.0 in 1987. Windows 3.1 (the first popular version) in 1992!
Sorry. Please try again.
(Oh, the GUI concept is credited to Alan Kay at the U of Utah in 1969. PARC was demoed in 1975.)
It was in UNIX, including BSD, long before it was in Windows. Apple didn’t implement it in OS X right away, but when they did, they were catching up with other UNIXes, just like MS did.
SJ “That’s it.. we got the best stuff in LH a year and half early.. who’s buying the first round”
lowly apple programmer “Uhm, Sir Jobs.. wait.. there’s more to copy still”
SJ “Like..?”
LAP “Windows will have upgraded its.. security..software..”
*silence…
SJ “BWAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!! Good one.. first rounds on me.. that was hilarious…”
LAP “*smirk Okay.. but no reefer this time.. “
How it is “copying” when Tiger is coming out first? By at least a year and half no less? Retard…
I have used Macintoshes for several years now, but not because I hate Microsoft. I’ve used Office on all my Macs, and it’s always been a solid application package. Microsoft develops a lot of decent products… but Windows just isn’t one of them.
No, I use Macs because the Mac OS is better. I don’t wish death on Microsoft or Windows, but I definitely wish Windows would get better in the same radical way Mac OS got better from OS 9 to X.
Why doesn’t Microsoft finally do what Apple did with OS X… acknowledge that placing more Band-Aids on a rickety old system simply won’t do any more and adopt a *nix-based system?
We all know it’s more stable and more secure, and at the end of the day if they actually did migrate Windows to a *nix system, then they may catch some flack about changing course, but at least they’d bring out a better operating system.
… and isn’t that what it’s about, after all? I changed to Mac after years of using Windows because it’s a BETTER system. I don’t have any religious sentiments about Apple, although they clearly bring out nice products. But if ever a day came when Windows was better than Mac OS, I’d switch back. I don’t find that likely, but it’s true. For me, it’s about a better computing system, not a holy war.
If Microsoft wants to continue down the tired old road that is Windows as it stands today, so be it… but it’s to their own detriment.
Microsoft’s Security advances are all about Security for M$ and their money, not the user. Notice it with XP? Now you have to log into secure servers and give passwords before you can use XP, and everytime you install a new HDD (or clean install cos Windows is so stuffed up) into your own PC that is licenced, you run into authentication issues and end up having to phone M$ and arguing with a pleb trying to get a legal OS working!!!
But despite this “security” advance there are still tons of dangers from viruses and so on, so security for the end user is not inherant in the OS, you need to rely on external software (antivir, antispam, etc) for safety.
Imagine what Longhorn will be like if/when it ever arrives?
“Sorry, you’ve decided to do a clean install, you’ll have to go and buy LH again”
Nice approach, Jim, but answer me this:
Is it innovation to work on it for FIFEEN YEARS and still have to pull it from Longhorn so that fast searching won’t be out until like 2008? Are we copying you? If we were, then ours wouldn’t be out until, let’s see, 2020!
Yeah, we’re copying you. I think you ought to go back to Bill Gate’s “stolen TV” simile and not try to pretend we are copying you. Fast search is the holy grail of many. Just because you have been working on it doesn’t mean you’re the innovater.
As they say, you can’t copy right an idea, just the execution.
Nice try Jim. And thanks for the compliments.
Steve
[sarcasm] You’re right, Jim. Apple HAS been copying you. Also, Ben Affleck is copying me. I wanted to sleep with Jennifer Gardner years before he did. So what if he’s actually in bed with her as we speak and I’m home alone with just my “Electra” DVD and a bottle of hand lotion? It was MY idea first! Nyah-nyah! I win! When will Ben stop copying me and get a life of his own? First he steals my idea about sleeping with J. Lo, and now this. What a loser that guy is. [/sarcasm]