In the same month as Apple release their multi-touch Magic Mouse to buy Microsoft announced a series of multi-touch mouse prototypes that look as though they've flash-forwarded from the 1980s. I was reminded of a post I wrote this time last year that quoted the Counternotions blog on Why Apple Doesn't do 'concept products' which is worth revisiting in light of this example:

"A commercial company’s ability to innovate is inversely proportional to its proclivity to publicly release conceptual products."

One might be tempted to say Microsoft looks less and less relevant as time goes on, but then they always have been runners-up on the ideas front. This time round however they just don't seem to be able to innovate, explore and execute on multiple plans the way they did when they were growing to dominate the OS market.