Woz Says It’s Inevitable that MS Innovates

Steve Wozniak just recently let some of his thoughts be known on what he thinks about all this crazy Apple stuff going on. While “the other Steve” lays out some tid bits on Apple going Intel and the iPod distracting from the company’s original goal, it’s what Woz says at the end of the article that makes one laugh and wonder at the same time.

It’s there that Wozniak talks about Microsoft and its apparently lack of good products. Many keep praising Apple with such wonderful marvels as the iPod, Mac mini, and the iMac. OS X has been well received with every release as well as Apple’s professional line of software, such as Final Cut Pro, getting bravos in nearly every publication, soft or hard copy. So can Microsoft ever do something innovating? Woz thinks at some point, the laws of engineering nature will have to allow something to burp out of Redmond.

“Microsoft wants to get out of the whole image of the big, black Darth Vader evil guy,” he said. “Innovation is probably going on within the company, because any time you put smart engineers in places eventually they wind up talking and innovating no matter how much you try to hold them back.”

Wow, so you mean if you put a bunch of brilliant people in a room and even if the Borg leader and his lieutenants force them to do the Empires evil biddings, something will still be birthed that has a value to the rest of the galaxy?! I guess so, huh? I mean truth is, Word is a great word processor and I think the InteliMouse is second to none, so I guess it already has happened and could again. Voice Command for the Pocket PC is also the best voice activation software I’ve ever used and that’s just about a year old.

So Woz is right, on that great big campus out there near Seattle, innovation does struggle to break free of the grips of suppression and does — and will — happen. Though if it will happen in the DAP space is hard to say. The Xbox 360 is doing great, but truth is, the whole Xbox was a copy of the Sony PlayStation. What ever DAP offering MS will make will be more of a copy then an innovation. But then again, per the other Steve, something could bubble out of the tar pits of Redmond and one day we could all be using the MS PortaMan audio/video player.

Woz is a guy with heart and he shows it by summing up his thoughts with an olive branch comment, saying, “I hope Microsoft improves and becomes more like Apple.” Aaaaah.

[Via globeandmail.com]

[tags]woz,steve wozniak,thinks microsoft can innovate[/tags]