Microsoft's motto continues to be "If you can't beat 'em, steal from 'em"
Speaking of copying... allow me to echo a bit of what Scott mused on this morning.
Instead of relying solely on features from Apple's Tiger to flesh out their years-in-the-marketing OS, Microsoft is going so far as to copy Apple's copying! Well they didn't go that far. They looked only toward Seattle. Let me explain....
You remember how when Dashboard was announced everyone accused Apple of essentially repackaging Konfabulator and calling it their own? Well Redmond's been reading the same play book.
During the WinHEC keynote today, Gates demoed a new app that Windows users can expect to see in about 2 years. It's called Delicious Library. Oh wait... no it isn't. It only acts like Delicious Library. It's actually called Media Mania. Don't let the name fool you, though... it's Delicious Library... only uglier.
Wil Shipley the Chief Monster at Delicious Monster Software noticed the similarities immediately. In an email sent to a site loftier than ours, Wil said:
"I know this sounds like a joke, but check out the screenshots (here, here and here) from his keynote at WinHEC. Hey, if only there were some way that you could have an online catalog of books, movies, music, and videogames... and what if you displayed the full-size covers of those items, and there was a search field to refine your choices, and a slider to zoom in and out, and you could buy an item with a single click? Yah. Someone should invent something like that."
Gosh, Wil... tell us how you really feel, man!
Wil goes on to say that one of the only (if not the only) differences he can find between Microsoft's app and his own is the "über-ugly look of their shelves" and the fact that Microsoft lets you view back covers. He reinforces his point by noting that even the categories are the same.
"You couldn't add any others?" Wil inquires, "Like, say, software titles? I mean, you're Microsoft, why would you not have a category for software? Oh, because WE didn't think of it for you? Zoom slider at the bottom? Couldn't be anywhere else? Search field at the bottom? I mean, come on, guys. Sure, you moved the categories to the top, but, seriously. This is just embarrassing for you."
Welcome to Redmond, my friends. Home of the 64-bit copy. Perhaps Microsoft should make a play to pry Kinkos away from FedEx? Seems like a perfect fit to me.
[thanks, Dan!]
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