Ballmer admits a rip-off?

eWeek has a short but interesting interview with Steve Ballmer in which he's poorly hiding the fact that Vista just doesn't have a whole lot left to lure consumers or enterprise users into upgrading. At the end of this otherwise unrelated interview is the juicy part, where Ballmer basically flat-out says they've been watching – er excuse me: learning – from what others are doing, and emulating instead of innovating:

"I don't hear [about other operating systems] from enterprise customers. They don't look at the Mac. They just don't. Some people will say some of the features are kissing cousins to features they've seen elsewhere, and that is true.
I'm not apologetic about the fact that we should, in a way that doesn't offend anyone else's intellectual property, study and learn and benefit from the work others have done."

Thanks Ballmer, we appreciate your honesty.