Innovative? Not.

I was talking to my neighbor the other day about Microsoft, wondering out loud if part of the reason they aren’t very innovative anymore is because the company is so isolated way out in Redmond. She didn’t seem to understand how I could think Microsoft isn’t innovative, stating that Bill Gates and most of the world would probably disagree. Well, I doubt it. Check this out, from a review on Vista from David Pogue at the New York Times:

If the description so far makes Vista sound a lot like the Macintosh, well, you’re right. You get the feeling that Microsoft’s managers put Mac OS X on an easel and told the programmers, “Copy that.”

Funny, because that was exactly my experience for the month I was there. What’s Yahoo! doing? Copy that. What’s Google doing? Copy that.

And this:

Now, before the hate-mail tsunami begins, it’s important to note that Apple has itself borrowed feature ideas on occasion, even from Windows. But never this broadly, boldly or blatantly. There must be enough steam coming out of Apple executives’ ears to power the Polar Express.

Anyway, I don’t know which part of imitation equals innovation.