Yahoo Purchases Konfabulator

NerdyPunk2ML writes "Macworld news has an article about Yahoo's acquisition of Konfabulator, which will be announced Monday. Yahoo company executives said they will be giving Konfabulator away for free, completely doing away with the US$19.95 currently charged for the product. The reason they purchased Konfabulator was they wanted an easy way to open up its APIs to the developer community and allow them easy access to the information on the Yahoo web site." From the article: "The acquisition of Konfabulator may not be the last Mac compatible product users see from Yahoo! While Schneider wasn't specific, he did say that there was interest in the Mac. 'There is a move at Yahoo! -- in addition to Konfabulator -- to move more onto the Mac,' said Schneider. 'We want to make sure we find a way to be more cross platform.'"

Comments

Re:too lazy to google right now

[uprock_x]

Konfabulator == widgets; desktop thingys made from *ml, javascript etc.

Apple later came up with Dashboard, created the mother of all smokescreens about Desktop Accessories to plead that it was not inspired by Konfabulator and the rest is history.

Apple's behaviour apparently wasn't breaking any law as such but it was the equivalent of some kid leaning over your shoulder and copying your homework. I expect the Dashboard apologists will appear shortly pointing to a piece of FUD called daringfireball, but the question remains:

would Dashboard have existed in the form it does, using the underlying technologies it does, trying to serve the purpose it does and look how it does if Konfabulator never had existed ?

answer: um...ah....oh

I say good luck to Konfabulator, hope they got a good price from Yahoo