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Comment by tzaman | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft, as usual, following other's footsteps. Kinda sad since they used to lead the game.

As mentioned earlier on HN, deals like these don't just happen overnight. They literally are the result of months (sometimes years) of planning, analysis, and strategy. To think that MS is just going to drop $100 mil on AR technology because Facebook did (are they really even competitors, I mean come on...) is very naïve.

Obviously companies like Microsoft have their own spies in Facebook and Google and vice versa, so yeah this might well be a response to Facebook buying Oculus.

Just because they bought a few patents doesn't mean they're following. FWIW, MSR has done some pioneering work here and they showcased early prototypes a while back. I wouldn't be surprised ms has had one in the works for a while

The parents were reassigned to Microsoft on January 17th. Maybe Facebook is the copy cat.

To be fair, Google wasn't the first at search, email, or smartphones but they do very well in each of those areas.

> Kinda sad since they used to lead the game.

May be when they first made their Basic interpreter. And Word for Windows.

But everything else was an acquisition or a clone. DOS bought, Windows cloned from Xerox and Mac, Excel cloned from Lotus-123, FoxPro bought, XBOX cloned from playstation, Internet Explorer bought.

And iPhone closed from the Palm. And the iPod cloned from the Archos Rockbox. And Linux of course cloned from Unix. And the Mac cloned from Xerox. And the iPad cloned from tablet PCs. And the PlayStation cloned from Nintendo. Nintendo cloned from Atari 2600. Atari 2600 cloned from board games.

BTW, Word cloned from Word Perfect. BASIC interpreter cloned from all the previous BASIC interpreters that existed.

Being first or "leading" don't matter. It's about execution and a bit of luck. Look at Android. It sure as heck wasn't first, but they executed. Windows wasn't first, but they executed.

Would you like to explain how e.g. Excel is a clone of 123, but 123 is not a clone of Visicalc?

I mean, everything ever done with digital computers is an extension of Charles Babbage's work on the difference engine, which was cloned from Pascal's calculator of the 1640s, maybe with a couple of enhancements here and there. See how you sound?

Easy to say 'cloned' when you mean 'built'. There's a lot of differences between those products. If an entrepreneur came out with them it'd be called innovation, not cloning.

And the iPhone was a clone of Windows Mobile?

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