New Microsoft Email Shows Panic Over OSX Tiger’s Features
This Iowa antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft is unearthing more juicy emails from Microsoft’s past than if Gates and Ballmer admitted they used take morning saunas with a goat before writing Windows 95 code.
Previously it was Allchin lamenting his experience with a Creative Zen digital music player and his WMP software, saying that the iPod and iTunes blew it away. Before that it was Allchin saying he would buy a Mac if he didn’t work at Microsoft, which, despite being taken a bit out of context, was still quite damning.
Now it’s an email from Lenn Pryor, the former Director of Platform Evangelism:
Tonight I got on corpnet, hooked up Mail.app to my Exchange server and then downloaded all of my mail into the local file store. I did system wide queries against docs, contacts, apps, photos, music, and … my Microsoft email on a Mac. It was fucking amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.
Wow. The email, which can be found in its entirely here as an eminently-readable PDF, goes on to suggest that Pryor didn’t want to give his Tiger installation DVD up and that high-level Microsoft employees were openly sharing OSX Tiger DVDs, which, if I’m not mistaken, is not what Apple and its licensing agreement condones.
Oops.
In any event, it’s clear that Microsoft watches Apple’s OSX very closely when it comes to their own operating system design. For all the Microsoft slappies who think that Micrsoft is too big and important to worry about what little ol’ Apple is doing, well, think again.
Apple is very much on Microsoft’s radar, and not just because of the iPod/iTunes.
[via Daring Fireball]
Technorati Tags: apple, osx, tiger, vista, leopard, technology, windows, lawsuit, email
I love the reference in the email “I’ve had no crashes in 5 hours”. The Microsoft OS at that time must have had serious problems if they thought such a short time was so noteworthy!
So what timescale do MS execs think being crash-free for is acceptable? I’m used to days or weeks with my Mac. Poor Vista users.
That is awesome, not surprising, but still cool to see. And once again when Vista comes out they’ll be about 5 years behind and a universe away from actually “getting it”.
If Tiger == Vista in the eyes of MS executive management, what will Leopard vs. Vista be?
Jobs and co. have an opportunity to really shine here. I don’t think they’ll disappoint.
Seems like Vista is a mac ripoff. I have Windows though with blogging on Xbox 360 I have to support Microsoft.
The devious thing about MSFT is that in public, they identify their competition as LINUX. In private, they know better.
Tom — Linux is a threat to MS’ server business, but Google and Apple are dangerous to its desktop market.
Jim Alchin is a useless guy. Microsoft needs to innovate, period. There demos are boring. Bill gates looks funny with that little clipper in his hand as he talks the same stuff over and over again. Jobs on the other hand has sales and marketing tricks of his own and pretty good at that.
I already knew Microsoft watched Apple closely regarding OS design – otherwise how could you explain all the changes to Vista’s GUI?
What bothers me is that Apple fanboys will just eat this up. YES – Apple may do some things better than Microsoft visually because they DO seem to care more about the way their products are perceived graphically and ad-wise by the public BUT that does not mean their software is really any better. My experience w/ Apple (as a designer who has used Macs since the 90s) has been that for every one thing Macs do right they do 10 things so-so and 20 horribly or not at all. Compared to Windows, they both are about the same and both companies need to seriously overhaul their OS designs.
Apple needs to stop incrementally updating OSX and work on something completely different instead of adding widgets and rotating/3D user switching effects. Vista needs to just crash and burn so Microsoft will *finally* wake up and smell the coffee.
Well, that’s all
Microsoft better wake up and realize that the only reason they exist is market saturation, not quality of service.
mike — Yes, to a degree that’s true. Microsoft owes its dominance to (a) a lack of viable competitors for such a long time, which means applications, as there were no other platforms to develop for, and (b) massive business saturation. People will buy at home what they use at work.
MS is finding tough sledding on any number of fronts right now. Their runaway success these days? Xbox 360, and it’s well-deserved.
bigidea — actually, I disagree. I think Allchin has mojo. He’s not a total corporate wonk. He wants freshness in Microsoft. He wants to innovate, to be new, to restore some juju to Microsoft’s image.
Unfortunately, he can’t do it alone.
Question is, can Allchin be a change agent to the degree he needs to? Can he succeed in getting Microsoft’s larger culture to change and fall in line with what he wants?
Or is the Microsoft monolith too big, too heavy, to apt to trip over itself to allow such a chance to take place?
Maybe mini-Microsoft has been right all along: to get to somewhere new, you need to start adding by subtracting.
That is incredible. Apple is definately on top.
What a find, Jeff!
As programmers, developers, information architects, and tech evangelists, we all look at what everyone else is doing! We all go, “that’s cool. Let’s see if we can do it too!”. We’d be crazy not to. I’m actually pleased that Microsoft does it as well (even if it is behind closed doors).
It’s a pitty that both Apple, MS, and others, can’t just get it out into the open and admit to learning from each other. Maybe we’d see better products from everyone as a result. Maybe we’d even see some adherence to standards a bit more frequently.
M
I liked the part where they say that MS announced WinFS (referring to the search capabilities of the system) and Steve delivered it first.
Marcus — I know. What’s going to kill MS is that Apple is enhancing Spotlight even more for Leopard, which will keep OSX’s system-wide search well ahead of Windows’.
Apple does a better “WinFS” than Microsoft does.
Jeff – I hope you are right!
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