"David Charlap" said:

> Dick Balaska wrote:
> >
> > I was always surprised that M$ didn't "invent" springs 'n
> > struts; it seems that s'n's would be a natural for Visual Studio.
>
> It has surprised me as well. But MS doesn't invent, the
> acquire. Since they didn't acquire Visix (although I'm told they
> made overtures once upon a time), they were unable to invent the
> same feature. And they wouldn't be able to patent it as their own.
> (For the same reason Visix couldn't patent it - prior art.)

Sean (the main inventor of springs and struts) now works on .Net at
Microsoft.

When I was at Microsoft I tried to get them interested in the concept
a couple of times. I showed them VRE and Vibe. Lots of heads nodded,
but no one "bit."

Microsoft explored an acquisition of Visix twice that I knew about.
Once in the early days, and again near the end. At the end, they
saw it as a way to short-circuit the hiring process, rather than a
vehicle to gain access to any particular technology.

Jeff;