I thought that the redesign of Windows 7 was “my idea”.

I have a hard time believing that the MSFT employees involved in the UI redesign existed in a complete bubble, isolated from any influence or exposure to OS X. For three years? Not likely.

Jeff:  Well at least we now know the response Redmond gave to that declaration.  “Ok! *whirr of photocopier*”

“Redmond, start your photocopiers” indeed.

True dat.

“I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed.”
True dat!
“...it’s built on that very stable core Vista technology”

Mr. Aldous said in a PCR interview.  “We’ve significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it’s built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance. 

How anyone could say that with a straight face is unbelievable. Vista is a nightmare of biblical proportions. Most of our systems around here are running XP but we have a few newer Vista laptops, their own that we support. Systems and apps freezing, incompatibilities with printers, BlackBerries, other accessories, WinExplorer freezing and restarting, IE freezing and expiring. They are a disaster. I spent much of last week repairing a system (“No I haven’t backed it up ever but the data is critical so just fix it without losing anything” Grrrrr). That one is now running W7. After that my boss and I discussed it and he decided that these users have three options: Let us reformat and install XP. Let us upgrade them to W7. Lastly they could stay with Vista but “If they do that they have to understand they are on their own. We won’t help them with anything, not even a printer. The only message we will respond to from them is if they decide to go with one of the other two options.”

Compare this to the Mac systems I’ve been running, Two 10.6 and one 10.4 that haven’t missed a beat. Prior to that a PowerBook and iBook that were equally solid going all the way back to 10.1.

I agree with some of the other posters.  The true inaccuracy of the original interview is that he claimed Vista to be more stable than Mac OS X.  Right, and you’ve got land in Florida to sell me, right?  Ever since we upgraded to Vista at work, problems have been devastating and consistent.  I am astonished that the interviewer didn’t challenge the assertion that Vista is more stable than OS X!

Arrived at the “Mac-like” feel independently? Were the developers kept in a closet when not on the clock?

The man probably believes in convergent evolution.

I won’t even touch the “more stable than the current Mac” comment.