Submission + - Emails show Microsoft had Tiger Envy
WillCodeForRaisins writes: Newly released documents reveal that in 2004, Microsoft executives were awed by Apple's future operating system features, saying that they may not be able to achieve Apple's innovation levels and acknowledging future, similar Windows Vista features would be directly compared with Mac OS X. This confirms earlier reports that Vista development was inspired by Tiger. The messages, the report claims, were filed as evidence in an Iowa state court trying a Microsoft antitrust case and contained messages from several company evangelists and executives, including Jim Allchin, the head of Windows development efforts at the time. The report also notes that Lenn Pryor, former director of Microsoft's platform evangelism, was impressed by Apple's integrated desktop search functions, now called Spotlight. He called it "amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn-land today," he said, according to the report. Longhorn was the previous code-name for Windows Vista. Here's the full story.