You can pretty much count on many of the major companies copying whatever new product design Apple comes up with these days, but is that a satisfying way to do business? A few weeks ago I was surfing John Gruber’s Daring Fireball and saw a link for an upcoming ViewSonic Android Tablet. If that wasn’t enough to make me want to click, Gruber’s comment was.

“Reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

His obvious sarcasm made me check it out. Yes, you guessed right, it looks a lot like an iPad.

My 17-year-old daughter was sitting in the room watching TV, so I showed her the picture. I thought her comment was priceless.

“Aren’t they embarrassed to just copy Apple? If I owned that company and the best my people could give me was a copy of what Apple did, I’d fire them all!”

Of course, being copied is nothing new to Apple. Companies have been copying everything from the operating system to computers for years. These days, it’s popular to copy the iPhone and iPad designs.

I think the major players in the market have proven over the past few years that they are content to let Apple lead the way in the product design. That certainly gives Apple a huge advantage and one that they seem likely to keep for many years to come.

It’s hard to say whether Apple’s competitors are actually embarrassed to put out blatant copies of its products, but maybe creating confusion in the marketplace is the new high-tech business plan.