There is no reason (or possibility) that project names must be globally unique. It is irresponsible to report that Microsoft stooped so low as to filch the name of one of Apple's most expensive failures.

> under the aegis of Taligent - a conflation of "talent" and "intelligent," if you must know

Also known as "Your Brain on Drugs" by those of us with fairly close ties to IBM ... Somewhere I still have the tee shirt with that on the back, and a normal blue IBM logo superimposed over a full-color Apple logo on the front ... Fortunately it never went anywhere, but those of us in the trenches back then really wondered what TPTB were smoking ...

cade metz are you an apple fanboy? Based upon the few words in your article i would classify you as a worshiper of everything that comes from Apple and anything that comes not from Apple is devilish and doomed... GET REAL!!!

No I am not an M$ fanboy but i find it hypocritical how Apple gets away with deeds that would get M$ in deep shit... Or M$ charges too much for its software but Apple that really asks money for a glorified servicepack is praised... M$ can be run on a wide array of hardware while Apple locks itself down and charges through the teeth for generic hardware in a design plastic case...

Reality check dude they both are evil because they both only care about the all mighty (?) US$... And El Reg really such overly biased entries really do not belong here...

"no interest in building a Zune phone. Praise be. But he did say the company is prepping Zune software and services for the Windows Mobile platform"

Its not a flying car, its an plane you can drive on the road.

> "Though we suggest you avoid Wikipedia's Taligent entry, which is unsourced, riddled with mistakes, and could have been written by almost anyone."

Well why don't you go and fix it then, with your oh so superior knowledge, instead of repeating this tired old whinge yet again?

What an incredibly one sided and ultimately pointless article.

original idea in their business.

Paris, because she likes (the colour) pink.

.... Does that me I can be a "journalist" too?!

I thought it a bit of a sadness that Apple started releasing OS X versions with the codename as the whole differentiator. Sadly I suspect we won't see a return to the heights of codename greatness seen during the Piltdown Man/Cold Fusion/Carl Sagan/Butt Head Astronomer/Lawyers Are Wimps saga.

It's been posted in Bootnotes. That's where they put these amusing one liners :)

Don't you mean "More than 30 years after stealing the operating system that Apple stole from Xerox"?

Cade Metz! For his pointless, bitter, rambling non article! Really what was the point here? Was it a bad article? A comment that got mis posted as an article instead? Or an attempt by an author to make a FoTW? (In which case I think the spelling should be turned down a notch, and you need swearing in it - the rest fits the bill though)

You may wish to revise that statement in light of the remainder of your paragraph, Chris...

As usual, post an article the identifies Microsoft as indebted to Apple, or one that has an accurate historical perspective, and the knee-jerk reactionaries come out in force to bash, bash, bash. I'm surprised Webster isn't here yet.

No, of course codenames aren't universally exclusive. That's not the point. The point is, though, that both "Pink" and "Taligent" _are_ widely known by those who have been using computers for a bit longer than a year as projects associated with Apple. Microsoft can call their projects what they will; given that this is a Zune project, they probably should have named it "Brown." But their next Windows rev, I'm sure, will be codenamed either Jaguar or Panther... They've already got a "Windows 7" on the way which, to remind you all, is decidedly reminiscent of another great Apple project, System 7 for--you can guess--the Mac.

Yes, Apple fanboi and proud of it.

Paris, because even she knows to give credit where credit's due.

No childish comment from Webster Phreaky? Have his maths teachers made him stay behind for extra lessons?

@Adrian Jones

Stole from Xerox eh? Yeah sure, clearly Xerox had a long term OS business plan in mind, ROFL!

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt

Educate yourself !

Jeez Cade, you've attracted all the humourless clowns tonight. Better luck next time.

@Whiners: "tongue-in-cheek" means more than you think it means.

ermmm... Windows 7 is called Windows 7 since it's like, you know, version 7 of windows.

Or has Apple got the exclusive patent on version 7's now?

Indeed, you certainly are a Mactard and proud of it.

"I'm sure some things I remember as having originated at Apple were independently developed elsewhere. But the Mac brought them to the world."

Yep that is without doubt innovation at it's best ! ;-)

But then an article written by an ex Xerox and Apple engineer is surely without bias.

Try again David, the article you included a link to was written by an Apple employee, therefore can not be viewed as anything like the whole truth. It is a single side of the same truth.

Maybe you could Re-Educate yourself, and not believe everything you read on-line.

The bottom line, in business, ideas are constantly stolen and improved upon - thats called competition.

"The software is just fantastic, that is really what I think.

Oh by the way, which one's Pink?"

@David Kelly

"Stole from Xerox eh? Yeah sure, clearly Xerox had a long term OS business plan in mind, ROFL!

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt

Educate yourself !"

You don't even have to read between the lines to see that the MAC fundmentals all hailed from PARC.

Andrew Moore: Apple's engineers (and Steve Jobs) toured Xerox precisely to see what they were doing. This was with Xerox's blessing. Xerox got Apple stock as payment. Win-win, as they say. The article referenced also says "Of course, there were some ex- Xerox people in the Lisa and Mac groups, but the design point for these machines was so different that we didn't leverage our knowledge of the Xerox systems as much as some people think. "

Secondly (everyone), Cade's article is a joke. A funny. Laugh. Or don't. But don't take it seriously.

"So, more than thirty years after stealing Apple's operating system,..."

Huh? Rewriting history? Both Microsoft and Apple's basis for the GUI came from PARC.

No I didn't think so.

Otherwise it wouldn't be used by a high street shirt company.

Google 'pink' and you'll find a singer tops the listings - an ex-president, and a great voice she has too.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RLRLhV9U0kQ

The portentous nature of this. The theft of another company's ideologies & invention. Not M$, never!

Never before has such a thing been done by M$, except DOS, the Menu desktop system, Java, & one or two hundred more.

Big deal & what's new! M$ has been doing this ever & they claim that others steal their Intellectual Property. Hypocrites!

Go Linux

Douglas, we both know that you have better things to do with your time than showing the world that you don't understand humour. First post too, how sad are you, really?

Still okay if they call it 'Hardy Heron' ?

'Led Zeppelin' ?

'Earth'?

<--

Where's the 'Stevie is an angel' icon? Or the 'Golden Apple'?

How come it's always about MS have stolen Windows from Apple? You never see anyone talking about where IBM, Acorn, DR, Linux, Atari, Comadore, Sun, HP, etc. got their Windowing OSes from.

So MIcrosoft can't use a color for a code name, because that color was used nearly 20 years ago by someone else?

Slow news day? The quota of "pro-Microsoft" to "anti-Microsoft" articles not aligned to your satisfaction?

(not a fan of MS - but come one, this one is obvious)

Windows 7 will be "version 7 of Windows" only if you discount everything other than the NT lineage. To wit: Windows NT 4, then XP (5), then Vista (6), then--drum roll--Windows 7. IF, however, you count _actual versions of Windows_, we've got 1, 2, 3, 3.1, for Workgroups 3.11, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista--where do fit "7" in there, errrm, or do you, errrmmm?

Wintard much? Sure you do.

Always Paris, because at least she can count past 7.