ZOMG!!! Microsoft Copied Apple!!!
No, not really.
Okay people...
I thought it was pretty much common sense to people who know what a "windowed environment" is, but Microsoft did NOT copy Apple's windowed operating system. Your only proof that MS copied Apple is that Windows came after Mac OS. Using this formula, a windowed environment was not Apple's idea, either! It wasn't Microsoft's... it wasn't Apple's... it was Xerox's. (Yes, they used to make computers.)
The year is 1981. Xerox releases a device called the 8010 Star Information System. It sports the first occurance of a windowed operating system environment for personal computers. It was obviously something worth using... because:
In 1983, Apple released the Apple Lisa. Guess what it had? A windowed system! Two years after Xerox. Now before someone goes and says "well, Apple could have been making theirs before Xerox", you have no proof of that. Microsoft could have been developing their Windows long before Xerox, too, then, couldn't they. Everyone copied Microsoft!
It was in 1985 (yey! birth year!) that Microsoft unveiled Windows 1.0 to the public. So yes, technically, Microsoft made Windows after Apple made Mac OS, which was after Xerox made Star. Unless there's proof that someone actually started started coding one of their systems first, then using your method of saying Microsoft copied Apple? Apple copied Xerox.
Xerox pioneered the graphical user interface as we know it today. Everyone else copied. Apple did not create it, they didn't innovate... neither did Microsoft. I'm not bashing Apple, of course, but I am bashing fanboys who aren't getting the facts straight and try to get "free points".
Digg n00bs... honestly.