[DM-MUG] When Steve met Bill (Commentary)

[Jon Engelhardt]

Here's a link that references the new Microsoft Surface table PC  
product.  Kinda cool, IMO.
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
On Jun 1, 2007, at 10:41 AM, Russ & Marilyn Carlson wrote:

> When Steve Met Bill
>
> By Jason Snell (jsnell at macworld.com)
>
> Steve Jobs and Bill Gates shared a stage at the D: All Things  
> Digital conference this week. And while their joint-appearance may  
> have been disappointing to anyone expecting a two-billionaires- 
> enter-one-billionaire-leaves battle of wits, it was a fascinating  
> opportunity to view two men who are very much in the public eye,  
> perhaps destined to be inextricably linked to one another in the  
> history books, interact with each other for the first time in a  
> public setting in a decade.
> Read our coverage of the Jobs-Gates session
>
> Covering the session for Macworld, what struck me most about Jobs's  
> and Gates's interaction with one another was the genuine warmth  
> they both felt when nostalgically recalling the early days of the  
> personal computer revolution, when Microsoft supplied a version of  
> the BASIC programming language for the Apple II and then became one  
> of the flagship application developers for the very first Mac. In  
> an industry that has trouble remembering what happened last week,  
> these men have 30 years of history -- much of it good, believe it  
> or not.
>
> It's easy to portray these two as bitter rivals, and their two  
> companies certainly provide contrasting styles and approaches to  
> technology that match the personalities of their founders. Jobs  
> showed himself to be a very thoughtful, almost philosophical  
> speaker at times. Likewise true to form, Gates exposed his  
> unabashed geeky love of the nuts and bolts of the engineering  
> behind the technology. But both seemed to recognize the strengths  
> of the other.
>
> For me, the most telling statement of the night was from Gates,  
> when each man was asked about what he admired about the other. "I'd  
> give a lot to have Steve's taste, his intuitive taste, both for  
> people and products," said Gates. He told a story about one of  
> those early meetings when the original Mac was being developed, in  
> which Gates would approach problems from a technical perspective,  
> as "an engineering guy." And in contrast, he'd see Steve Jobs make  
> an intuitive decision, based on "his sense of people" and how  
> they'd respond to using the technology. "And it was magical," Gates  
> recalled. "Wow!"
>
> Jobs, hearkening back to Apple's decision not to license the Mac OS  
> to other hardware companies, which led to the rise of Microsoft  
> Windows, said that he regretted that Apple had too much of a lone- 
> wolf mentality in those days. "Because Woz and I started the  
> company based on doing the whole banana, we weren't so good at  
> partnering with people.... And if Apple had more of that in its  
> DNA, it would've served us really well. And [Apple] didn't learn  
> that until a couple decades later."
>
> This is not to say that the night was entirely a love-fest, not on  
> the same day where Jobs likened the Windows version of iTunes to  
> "giving a glass of icewater to somebody in hell." Most notably the  
> pair clashed about, of all things, Apple's successful series of  
> television ads featuring the Mac Guy (Justin Long) and the PC Guy  
> (John Hodgman). Gates was visibly uncomfortable during the entire  
> discussion of the ads, not buying Jobs's suggestion that "The art  
> of those commercials is not to be mean, but is actually for the  
> guys to like each other." When both Jobs and co-moderator Kara  
> Swisher expressed that they liked the PC guy, Gates shot back, "His  
> mother loves him." And when Jobs carted out his well-worn Alan Kay  
> quote about people who make software desiring to design their own  
> hardware, Gates let rip with another dry rejoinder: "I can resist  
> that." But Gates did admit that, in certain areas, Apple's approach  
> to unified hardware and software design was appropriate, which is  
> why Microsoft has adopted it for products such as the Zune, Xbox,  
> and the new Microsoft Surface table PC product.
>
> However, the pair did find a lot of common ground, especially when  
> defending the honor of the technology product that defines both of  
> them: the personal computer. While excitedly discussing the future  
> of tiny, "post-PC" devices, Jobs and Gates both said that the death  
> of the PC is probably a long way off. Gates ticked off other  
> devices that were going to kill the PC, like the network computer,  
> and the single-function computer. Jobs said that "the PC will  
> continue to be with us, and it'll morph with us." But Jobs also  
> showed a greater enthusiasm for the possibilities in those new  
> devices, such as the iPod and the iPhone.
>
> Ultimately, did this Gates-Jobs joint appearance live up to the  
> electricity in the room beforehand? Even though it was a relatively  
> gentle kind of evening, I'd have to say yes. To see these two icons  
> of the computer industry, reacting to one another and playing off  
> each other, in an informal setting free of PR handlers, was a  
> chance to peek through their shells a little bit. And what we got  
> was a good glimpse at two men who genuinely love technology and are  
> driven by their enthusiasm in the work they have chosen.
>
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