Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends
Microsoft rips off Apple's icons, too?
An astute Daring Fireball reader discovered Apple's Workgroup Manager icon on Microsoft's Vista Business Edition "buy now" page. The icon has since been hastily replaced since John Gruber posted about it. He grabbed a screen cap of the original, thankfully, and I can confirm that I saw it for myself this morning. The bonus "Busines" typo in the same page's <title> tag remains, however. Note to Microsoft: If you want to keep your stronghold in the Business market, you might want to spell it correctly.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sun Chiu said 10:57PM on 12-11-2006
yeah today is copyrival day. google and yahoo are doing the same thing
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008122.html
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Justin Allard said 11:04PM on 12-11-2006
I find it quite amusing that Microsoft can't spell business correctly.
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Dave said 11:51PM on 12-11-2006
This reminds me of another time that M$ copied a logo. A few weeks back Engadget ran a story about M$ giving away office and Vista.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/29/watch-a-few-online-vids-get-a-free-copy-of-vista-or-office/
When you goto the site it had a Yin/Yang symbol in the same colors as the Apple Universal logo. Although M$ did rotate and reverse the image. Yet they still used the same colors. It seems though the icon was removed from M$'s site though. Engadget still has the picture of the icon on there story page.
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All Evolve said 1:44AM on 12-12-2006
isn't it possible those are just stock-photo icons?
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JD said 1:29AM on 12-12-2006
Yup, they can't spell it right, and they can't perform it legally (aka Microsoft anti-trust, both in the US and EU).
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croz said 3:46AM on 12-12-2006
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...
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cameron hunt said 4:39AM on 12-12-2006
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.
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andyh said 9:18AM on 12-12-2006
did you notice the cd in the 'buy now' icon - sure looks like an aqua icon to me
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Joseph Crawford said 9:26AM on 12-12-2006
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?
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Scott said 9:52AM on 12-12-2006
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.
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Catt said 7:01PM on 12-13-2006
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!
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digitalintrigue said 10:52AM on 12-12-2006
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. :)
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Brady J. Frey said 11:28AM on 12-12-2006
"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.
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Peter Kirn said 11:53AM on 12-12-2006
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.
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