Microsoft Benefits from ‘Work Others Have Done”
From eWeek.com:
eWeek: Some Microsoft critics say that many of the features in “Longhorn” already exist in other operating systems. How do you respond to that?
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: I don’t hear that from enterprise customers. They don’t look at the Mac. They just don’t. Some people will say some of the features are kissing cousins to features they’ve seen elsewhere, and that is true. I’m not apologetic about the fact that we should, in a way that doesn’t offend anyone else’s intellectual property, study and learn and benefit from the work others have done.
So, is this the final proof that Steve Ballmer is off his nut, or that he thinks his enterprise customers are? I mean, wasn’t there some lawsuit about this? Doesn’t Microsoft vigourously defend its own intellectual property? How does perceived lack of customer overlap make it okay for Microsoft to “benefit from” Apple’s products, like Mac OS X?
