ChaosBringer wrote:To me, W7 looks a lot like KDE and Macintosh....They should innovate, not copy.
You should really follow the work of
Microsoft Research, sometime.
You're looking only at the taskbar. It's a little thicker. Icons are a bit larger. It
copied KDE and OS X, therefore. That's your argument. If you want to be technical, it went all the way back to 1987 on RISC based systems. But
Microsoft pioneered the taskbar in Windows 95, a fantastic method of mulitasking and task switching, and truely made it what it's become today.
Did you ever consider the fact that GNOME and KDE have actually
copied Microsoft for years?
Apple copied Microsoft with application stacking in the dock. It's more "sophisticated" since it fans out in a beautifully animated curve fashion, but it's exactly the same idea.
The taskbar has already been innovated. Everything from that innovation on forward is simply a variation and improvement on the same idea.
My overall argument, however, is that innovation is subjective. There's very few "new" ideas left out there and most new features will simply be variations on old ideas and concepts.
Apple innovates. The Linux community innovates.
Microsoft innovates. On the other side of the coin,
Apple copies, the Linux community copies, and
Microsoft copies. But the key factor here is that typically when someone copies, an addition to the feature which increases functionality is also present, thus evolving technology.
It's a key part of technology progression. And it's also one of the reasons software patents are evil because it causes too many people to start pointing fingers screaming "you
copied my idea" rather than, "yes, I innovated this idea, but good gosh you added some pretty nice features to it."
Windows 7 will probably be looked at as a God-sent because of the low expectations Vista set. If you release something very sh*tty and the next thing you release is better than it will look MUCH better when you compare it.
I'll be the first to admit Vista had its problems. That being said, the overwhelming majority of bad reputation that it's received is undeserved. Most of these "problems" everyone hears about are actually a result of horrible OEM programs pre-installed with machines, or Vista being installed on sub-par hardware, or old hardware that was designed with XP in mind, and Vista drivers were just a second thought.
Microsoft has been forced into a position where they have to "admit" that Vista was a mistake. They can't explain to people about audio, network, graphics, and security stacks built into the kernel which provide significantly more compatibility, stability, and security, because the average user won't understand what you're saying halfway into a sentence. It's too technical. As soon as they start passing the blame to OEMs like HP, Sony, and Dell (which is, in truth, where most of the problems have come from), they start looking like they're just making excuses and lose even more reputation because the public has convinced themselves (with the help of the popular commercials from a competitor which spread even more fears and lies) that Vista is a horrible product.
So they're forced into a situation where they have to admit defeat, eat the cost, apologize for a ton of crap that really isn't their fault (again, don't get me wrong, there were a lot of issues with Vista), and tell the public "We'll do better next time."
- Adam