In a totally unsurprising development, the derivative Microsoft has clearly ripped off Apple’s Workgroup Manager icon.
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has the info and screenshots here.
MacDailyNews Note: Microsoft seems to have already changed their icon after being caught red-handed.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft Windows Vista developers used Apple Macs for inspiration – November 27, 2006
Microsoft’s Windows Vista is basically Microsoft’s version of Mac OS 9.3 – October 11, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Ballmer: I’m Microsoft’s ‘primary champion of innovation’ – July 27, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
Thurrott: Microsoft going to get eaten alive over Windows Vista’s resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – March 09, 2006
NY Times’ Pogue on Gates’ CES demo: Most of Vista features unadulterated ripoffs from Apple Mac OS X – January 05, 2006
Analyst: Windows Vista may still impress many consumers because they have not seen Apple’s Mac OS X – January 05, 2006
Apple’s talent and innovation vs. Microsoft’s hype – October 25, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Vista strives to deliver what Apple’s Mac OS X already offers – October 10, 2005
Thurrott: many of Windows Vista’s upcoming features appeared first in Apple’s Mac OS X – September 26, 2005
Microsoft’s Ballmer: It’s true, some of Windows Vista’s features are ‘kissing cousins’ to Mac OS X – September 18, 2005
PC World: Microsoft innovation – an oxymoron – September 14, 2005
As usual, Apple leads, Microsoft tries to follow – June 02, 2005
eWEEK Editor Coursey: Longhorn so far ‘looks shockingly like a Macintosh’ – April 25, 2005
Due in late 2006, many of Windows Longhorn’s features have been in Mac OS X since 2001 – April 25, 2005
Microsoft’s new mantra: ‘It Just Works’ ripped straight from Apple’s ‘Switch’ campaign – April 22, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Microsoft’s Longhorn: ‘They are shamelessly copying us’ – April 21, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn will bear more than just a passing resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – April 15, 2005
Steve Jobs: Microsoft copied original Apple Mac with Windows 95, now they’re copying us again – February 08, 2005
Novell CEO: ‘Microsoft sucked $60 billion out of IT industry that could have used for innovation’ – September 13, 2004
Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Mac OS X Tiger ‘is going to drive the copycats crazy – June 28, 2004
PC Magazine: Microsoft ‘Longhorn’ preview shows ‘an Apple look’ – May 06, 2004
Charles Arthur: Microsoft’s definition of ‘innovation’ different from everyone else’s – April 27, 2004
Apple usually ahead of the times; Windows users often have to wait to catch up – February 27, 2004
Windows ‘Longhorn’ to add translucent windows that ripple and shrink by 2005 – May 19, 2003
Relax you guys (and gals) –
It was just a coincidence. They didn’t mean to steal the icon. They were copying something else and the icon “accidently” ended up on their web site.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
BTW – Unsquirted – Great summary of the MS web design process. LOL.
Apparently the only thing Micro$oft is good at right now is XBOX 360. They are now a gaming company.
Yo, don’t cha know?
If yo bizzniss is small, you take the “s” off the end. So the small business is a busines. Pronounced “biz-eens”. Like “ba-zooms” but “biz-eens”
Get it?
Learn the language you were born with for Chrissakes.
Sheesh.
Surprised Bill Gates hasn’t had plastic surgery to look like Steve Jobs.
But underneath the shell, just like Vista, he’d still be unimaginative and boring.
So M$ just happened to spot their mistake – or do they have some one ( probably need a whole department ) in Redmond hired to read MDN and alert people when Mac enthusuasts spot their latest snafu
Daring Fireball is read by far more people than MDN, and was the original writer of the story.
They have someone hired to read all the Apple news. That’s clear.
I guess we should be careful not to mention the Apple’s upcoming douche, now with extra vinegar.
You don’t mean the one with the zirconium casing and the “touch sensitive” controller, do you? Be careful what you post here, or Ballmer’ll be right on it.
Good one R!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
huh? pfft. it’s been competing against last gen for a year. game’s over now.
Anyone running a site with any decent traffic will know that the big tech companies all have their own search spiders that regularly scan the web for news and information that they think they should know about. And yes, that includes APple too.
It doesnt look like that now
Evidence of extreme sloppiness. The icon was probably sent in an email: “We need to do something like this…” without proper attribution.
> “Great icon! Wonder who did it … let’s just use it as it is.”
Oops.
Another example that the best from Microsoft was done first by someone else. If Microsoft is as “innovative” as it claims, Microsoft should have at least changed the colors of the icon!
maybe someone squirted the artwork to them on a brown zune
Given Microsoft’s huge size, what probably happened is this:
The graphics department hadn’t finished the Microsoft icon because they had a different deadline than the web site people. So a web designer, not having an icon, used the Apple icon as a placeholder. The page went seven layers up a management hierarchy for approval, then down seven layers of management for implementation by some other group. The second group, having no direct contact with the first original designer, posted the page without knowing the icon was Apple’s and that it was supposed to be a placeholder.
I bet the original team is having a three-hour meaning about this, followed by a stern memo.
Microsoft are scum.
There isn’t one creative bone in the body of that dinosaur – just as well it’s gonna be extinct soon anyway.
would you expect anything less than acts of theft from microsoft??
the boys up there at Microsoft (M$ for short) are undoubtedly missing out on something as simple as creativity!
but then we’re support to look the other way cause after all they are Microsoft!
what fools still buy from those assholes anyway – ones with real poor taste!
It’s not Microsoft, it is Microtheft…