Microsoft rips off Apple's icons, too?

Oh, come on, folks -- chill.

First, this was obvious some misbehaved graphic designer ripping graphics to hit a deadline. Odds are, that person was USING a Mac at the time. To say it's "Microsoft" is just childish. It's a huge company, and it's not possible to police all your designers. So you should say shame on whatever individual pulled this off.

Second, I'm fairly certain the other icon is in fact an actual icon out of Vista; pretty sure I saw it in a screen grab.

Trivia note: XP's icons were designed by legendary Mac-centric icon house Iconfactory. (Of course, horribly cramped by XP's icon resolution limitations, but iconic, as always ...) I don't know who designed the stuff for Vista.

"You know what is even funnier? You guys make such a big deal about something so frigging stupid. Yeah, that Mac community sure is better."

To designers, it is a big deal. It not only is ripping off someone's design, it also shows a lack of creative intent.

Laurie, before you call Microsoft out on a typo, you might want to recall your own proofreading challenge. :)

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/10/09/a-masked-apple-employee-begins-to-blog/#comments

All in good fun. :)

Hey MS been stealing from Apple for years... this is new news? The whole Aero interface in Vista is Aqua revisited... so I'm not surprised that the same icons are starting to pop-up. Hey if they want to learn from the best OS on the planet let them go ahead they should at least give credit though and not charge the consumers so much for copying and repackaging. What a rip!

You know what is even funnier? You guys make such a big deal about something so frigging stupid. Yeah, that Mac community sure is better.

This is pretty funny, I cannot believe MS would steal an icon to try to boost sales lol. It's not like they can say we did not steal it we made it. It just happens to be the same as the apple one ROFL.

Pretty pathetic MS :)

And for the incorrect spelling of Business it still remains there today. Very funny that they are trying to reach a business market and cannot spell it properly. Might it just be that the web developers Microsoft has are just as bad as their products?

did you notice the cd in the 'buy now' icon - sure looks like an aqua icon to me

All Evolve:

No, they didn't use a stock icon. That icon is obviously Aqua-style and tailored for the Workgroup Manager application. It's been is use for over a year, it's highly unlikely that IconFactory made the same icon for Microsoft and Apple.

I'm guessing that even if Apple used IconFactory, they made sure to get an exclusive licence, so that no other companies would use an Aqua-styled icon.

Do you want to know what is becoming even more frustrating? You folks and John Gruber ripping of each other's posts every day or two...

Yup, they can't spell it right, and they can't perform it legally (aka Microsoft anti-trust, both in the US and EU).