Photos: Gates, Jobs share the stage
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"We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade," Apple's CEO says of his relationship with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
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Ukraine's President Victor Yushchenko met with Microsoft President Bill Gates. The investment climate in Ukraine was the talks' main topic.
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Standing side-by-side with the artists of "The Gates" on Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg seemed to bask in the glow of a near-perfect blockbuster project.
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In this detailed interview, Gates talks about the background on deals announced at CES, new directions for Microsoft, and what he's proud of.
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STEVE JOBS, Apple's boss, on his often tense relationship with Microsoft founder Bill Gates  (c) 2007 Independent on Sunday, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning.
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(InfoWorld) - SAN FRANCISCO -- In what was certainly the marquee event at this year's D: All Things Digital conference, an annual gathering coordinated by the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs shared the stage with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in a joint appearance discussing the technology industry's past while looking ahead to its future. The evening began with history repeating itself in the form of videos originally recorded in 1984, 1991, and 1997, in which the two men shared a stage. The video ended with Jobs and Gates entering from opposite ends of the D: All Things Digital stage. The session was hosted by Wall Street Journal technology columnists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Swisher started by asked the two men what each has contributed to their industry. "Bill built the first software company in the industry. And I think he built the first software company before anyone in our industry knew what a software company was, and that was huge. And the business model they ended up pursuing ended up working really well," said Jobs. "Bill was focused on software before anyone else had a clue. There's a lot more you can say, but that's the high-order bit." "First I want to clarify, I'm not Fake Steve Jobs," said Gates, to peals of laughter from the audience, referring to the popular weblog. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates capped off Wednesday's D: All Things Digital conference with a joint session of tech industry heavyweights. The good old days "What Steve's done is phenomenal," Gates continued. "Back in 1977, the Apple II, the idea that it would be a mass-market machine and an incredibly empowering phenomenon. And the Macintosh, that was so risky. Apple really bet the company, Lisa hadn't done that well, but the team that Steve built within the company to pursue that, some days it felt a little ahead of its time, remember the Twiggy disk drive and..." Jobs interjected, "128K!" "In a certain sense we build the products we want to use ourselves," Gates continues. "He's really pursued that with an incredible taste and elegance and had a huge impact on the industry. Apple literally was failing when Steve went back and reinfused innovation and risk-taking that have been phenomenal. So the industry has benefitted immensely from his work. I'd say he's contributed as much as anyone." Jobs called Gates and himself "incredibly lucky" to attract great partners and great people to work with. He agreed with Mossberg's assessment that in a sense, he and Gates are standing in for all the people at both their companies. Jobs ruefully recalled some of Apple's early television advertisements. "We had a kitchen, with the wife typing in recipes and the husband looking on approvingly," he said, to laughter from the audience. Jobs and Gates also recalled Microsoft's efforts to provide floating point computation in the Apple II's BASIC programming language. "My partner, Steve Wozniak, brilliant guy. Writes the best BASIC on the planet," Jobs said. "Perfect in every way, except for one thing: it's just fixed point, not floating point. So we're getting a lot of input, please make it floating point. I'm begging Woz, and he just doesn't do it. He wrote it down on paper, never got around to doing it. So Microsoft had this very popular, very good floating point BASIC. And we went to them." Gates picked up the story from there. "It was $31,000 for the floating point BASIC. And I went down to Apple getting the cassette tapes to work," he added. Gates and Jobs both agreed that Microsoft made a huge bet with the Macintosh when Apple first introduced the new computer. "What's hard to remember now, is that Microsoft wasn't in the applications business then," Jobs said. "We made this bet that this paradigm shift would happen, to graphical interfaces, and that the Mac would be the one to do it," said Gates. "The big bet wasn't Mac versus Windows, it was character-mode versus graphics interface." Gates added that Microsoft eventually saw the benefits of that bet come home to roost when PC-compatible computers were outfitted with 386-era microprocessors. The bad old days Jobs recalls 1997, the year he returned to Apple after a decade running Next. "Apple was in very serious trouble. and what was clear, where if the game was a zero-sum game, where for Apple to win, Microsoft had to lose. And if that was the case, Apple would lose," he said. "A lot of people's heads were in that place ... There were too many people at Apple playing [that] game. It was clear that you didn't have to play that game." "Apple had to remember who Apple was, because it had forgotten," he added. Jobs' decision was to call Bill up. "And we tried to patch things up." Gates said that since then, Microsoft has had a dedicated Macintosh application development group -- the Mac Business Unit, or MacBU, which works very closely with Apple. "It's a great business for us," he said. A good natured rivalry? Gates and Jobs also traded comments about the Mac vs. PC television advertisements that pit actors John Hodgman and Justin Long against each other, as an anthropomorphic Windows PC and Mac, respectively. Jobs said the art of those advertisements is not to be mean, but for the guys to like each other. "His mother loves him," said Gates, ruefully, about the PC character. "PC Guy is what makes it all work," added Jobs, but Gates seemed unconvinced. Mossberg noted that Apple and Microsoft continue to vie for the hearts and minds of consumers -- recently with the Zune, Microsoft's iPod competitor, and Vista, Microsoft's new operating system that has been pitted against Mac OS X in numerous head-to-head comparisons in magazines and tech Web sites. Jobs reiterated a point he made with Mossberg during his session earlier in the day: The iPod, said Jobs, is a response to the development of digital music players by Japanese consumer electronics makers, who, in Jobs' opinion could create great boxes but not develop good software to manage them. The iPod and the Mac are both principally differentiated from their competitors by the software that drives them. "So the big secret about Apple is that Apple views itself as a software company. And there aren't very many software companies left. And Microsoft is a software company," said Jobs. "We look at what they do, and some is really great, and some is competitive, and some of it's not." Apple's goal is much more modest than world domination, said Jobs. "We don't think we're going to have 80 percent of the market," he said, doubtlessly disappointing legions of Mac enthusiasts. "We're happy when our market share goes up a point." The future of computing Jobs cited Apple alumnus Alan Kay next, and illustrated a key difference between himself and his colleague and rival. "Alan Kay said, people who love software want to do their own hardware," said Jobs. "I can resist that," retorted Gates. Jobs waxed philosophical. "In the consumer market at least, I think one can make a pretty strong case that outside of Windows on PCs, it's hard to see other examples of the software and hardware being decoupled working super well yet," said Jobs. "It might in the phone space over time, it might, but it's not clear." Gates believes the future of computing is what he describes as "rich local functionality." He points to single-function computers and network computers as examples of devices that didn't sell as well as the industry expected. "It's using local richness together with richness elsewhere," he added. Jobs agrees with Gates, and provided what he believes is a practical example of Apple's innovation at work when it comes to providing users with a rich local experience combined with remote data: the Google Maps functionality embedded on Apple's forthcoming iPhone, which ships in late June. "The experience is unbelievable, way better than a computer. And that client app is the result of a lot of technology on the client. And you can't do that stuff in a browser," said Jobs. Gates opined that in five years' time, consumers won't depend on a single computer -- they'll have multiple devices, such as a tablet with "voice and ink," along with "a phone, a pocket-sized device." Jobs sees a history for the same computer we've grown accustomed to. "As Bill said earlier, the death of the PC has been repeatedly predicted," he said. The PC will continue to be with us and will evolve, Jobs added. Jobs forsees "an explosion" of what he describes as "post-PC devices" such as the iPod. "There's a category of devices that aren't as general-purpose," he said, "And that category is going to continue to be very innovative. And we're going to see lots of them." Jobs said that those "Post-PC devices" are very attractive because they represent "a clean slate" that lacks the legacy of many applications and are more focused. "But you have to temper it, because you have users who don't want a car with six wheels," he said. The oldest guys in the room Asked by Kara Swisher to define the greatest misunderstanding in their relationship, Jobs joked, "We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade now." "We did look a lot younger in that video," Gates ruminated. He added that many of the people both Gates and Jobs worked with in the early days have moved on to other things. "I actually kind of miss some of the people who aren't around anymore," he said. Jobs explained that when they started out, he and Gates were often the youngest guys in the room. Now they're often the oldest. "I say everything in life is like a Beatles song or a Bob Dylan song. But there's that one line in that one Beatles song, 'You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.' And that clearly is true here." Following Swisher and Mossberg's questions, the audience was given an opportunity to ask the two captains of the computer industry their own questions. Queries ran the gamut from politics to entrepreneurialism. Gates said that his life's work -- development of the personal computer -- led him to want to create his charitable foundation to benefit people "who haven't had technology, including medicine, working for them." Jobs said he's unconcerned with his own legacy, calling himself and Gates "the two luckiest guys on the planet." "I just think about going in every day and being around these great people," he said. Asked to give advice for others considering starting their own businesses, Gates explained that in the early days, he and his colleagues never considered the value of the company they were developing. "It's all about the people and the passion, and it's amazing the business worked out the way it did." Asked if there was there anything that one envies about the other, Gates cited Jobs' "intuitive taste, both for people and products." As for Jobs, he said that he wished he and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak learned earlier how to partner with others, as Microsoft had. "If Apple had more of that in its DNA, it would have served it really well. And it didn't learn that until a couple decades later." Jobs' appearance alongside Gates capped off a busy day at the D: All Things Digital conference for the Apple CEO. Earlier, during his solo session, Jobs unveiled Apple TV's forthcoming support for YouTube videos and discussed the DRM-free content that became available via iTunes earlier Wednesday.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates speaks Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004 at Microsoft Corp.&#39;s annual shareholders meeting in Bellevue, Wash.
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A question lobbed by a writer covering this week's D: All Things Digital conference drew a comparison from Steve Jobs between Windows and hell. As for Apple's role as a significant developer in that diorama, ice cubes are involved.
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Steve Ballmer talks Web 2.0, Jeff Hawkins unveils the Palm Foleo, and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs share the stage.
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Webshots users offer their photos of Bill Gates mansion in Medina, Wash.
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Pressure from Microsoft chairman and shareholder Bill Gates over a sagging financial outlook and news that Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has bought nearly 9 percent of Six Flags, Inc. drove the amusement park company's shares up more than 25 percent Tuesday.
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By Brier Dudley, The Seattle Times  Feb. 12--Watching Steve Jobs is giving me a sense of deja vu.   The Apple boss is reminding me of the way Bill Gates acted in the late  1990s, before the crash. Gates was on top of the world then.
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At the recent D5: All Things Digital conference, Wall Street Journal technology columnists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg interviewed Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. To share the experience, download a free podcast (audio or video) of their historic meeting.
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For the 10th time, Bill Gates will inaugurate the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by touting new Microsoft Corp. products and describing his view of the future of computing.
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Jobs and Gates haven't shared the spotlight in years. They'll do it at this year's D Conference, though, and the topic is a weighty one.
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Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates has been giving keynote speeches at Las Vegas conventions, including the Consumer Electronics Show and the now-defunct Comdex, for decades. Before his last&#160;CES keynote speech&#160;as a full-time company employee, he talked with IDG News Service Executive News Editor Marc Ferranti about his legacy as an innovator, the background behind some of the deals announced at CES this week, and directions for Microsoft.The following is an edited version of the interview:IDGNS: We&#39;ve been tracking your career for some 30 years. One bone of contention has been when people have said that Bill Gates is a business mastermind, but not really an innovator. Can you point out a couple of innovative things you&#39;re particularly proud of?Gates: In terms of what we&#39;re proud of, I think it&#39;s the personal computer that we&#39;re proud of. It was a crazy idea at the time, that we could take the microprocessor and create a software industry around it. There was no software industry. Computing was about big businesses, and what we did in 1975, with me dropping out of school, was to say that we could build an industry that was about empowering people. We could seek out partners to build the hardware. We&#39;d let anyone write software for the work we did, and everything we&#39;ve done, over these 30 years, has been about that vision of personal computing. We were first ones with that vision.And now we&#39;re tackling the new frontiers. We&#39;re bringing TV, we&#39;re bringing new educational experiences, health experiences, onto this device that empowers people in a new rich way. And so it&#39;s pretty broad, the PC industry and our innovations in it -- I don&#39;t think there&#39;s anything in the last 30 years that has had as much impact.IDGNS: In the consumer space, since we&#39;re at CES, can you point out some recent innovations Microsoft can leverage in the next couple of years.Gates: Well the dollars spent on games and Xbox in the U.S. is greater than Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii combined. Really, that&#39;s because of the innovation in Xbox Live -- connecting people up, letting players find each other, matching them, getting video online. It&#39;s a real breakthrough way of thinking about even the future of TV.We&#39;ve got a million people using our Mediaroom, which is TV delivered over the Internet. Companies like AT&amp;T and 19 other phone companies around the world bet their future on this being the new video platform. And what that means is when you think about news, and you go and use Mediaroom news, you see the things that you care about, the ads are targeted at you.Look at what we&#39;ve done with Surface, directly touching and manipulating things -- that&#39;s gonna be a centerpiece.I can go on and on, there&#39;s so much that has to do with making it natural, bringing these things together and integrating them. We&#39;re the company that&#39;s doing the walk -- a lot of business focus but enough consumer focus that, from the biggest game phenomenon in the world to the biggest instant messaging thing, we have a lot of success that represents the innovation we&#39;re put into it.IDGNS: With increasing competition from abroad, innovation is of increasing importance to American companies. What&#39;s your thinking around the link between innovation and intellectual property?Gates: Well, we&#39;re a company that&#39;s based in the United States, but obviously we&#39;re drawing on engineering talent from all over the world. We&#39;ve got an unbelievable research group in China, we&#39;ve got an unbelievable research group in India, and we&#39;re delivering to consumers all over the world as well. And we file for intellectual property in all of these countries. They&#39;re all in different stages in terms of copyright, or patents, and it tends to be a pretty complicated area.Other countries look at what&#39;s going on in the United States and they say they&#39;d like their engineers to have those same opportunities, those same incentive systems, and so there really is a sense of progress in that. It&#39;s just one of the elements that make sure people are willing to take risks and keep the innovation in this industry the fastest of any industry in the world.IDGNS: You&#39;re going to be talking here about new partnerships for Microsoft&#39;s MSN, Xbox Live and Mediaroom IPTV services that will provide more content to drive Microsoft&#39;s consumer entertainment strategy. Can you talk about what you needed to do -- on the technology side and on the business side -- to make these deals happen?Gates: XBox Live is attracting virtually all the content people because of the volume we&#39;ve got there, and they see this group of very engaged users spending a lot of hours and finding new media in that environment, so that&#39;s made it easy for us. Our announcement with NBC on the Olympics is about our innovations in Silverlight, where you can view interactive content, multiple video streams, so it&#39;s really a perfect match for the Olympics where you have all this different content and yet different people care about different parts of it.IDGNS: As your consumer entertainment strategy comes to fruition, how will your business model change from what it has been in the past? Can you quantify goals for advertising-generated revenue?Gates: We&#39;ve seen good growth in our advertising revenue. That&#39;s an area where Google&#39;s the leader and we need to be very innovative to drive the scale. A huge partnership with Viacom is helping us with that. We&#39;ll be signing up more partners around the world. Taking the advertising platform to scale is very valuable for things like the search property we offer.We participate in a lot of business models. We have consumer software like games that you buy on a one-time basis. We have things that you can pay as a monthly fee, that we run up in our servers, as more of a service type model. We have some software we give away for free. And so, ads are coming in as a big, strong component but I don&#39;t see it replacing the others. We need all modalities to be strong.IDGNS: In your philanthropic work, you&#39;ve focused on fundamental health issues for the developing world. In the tech sector, there have been efforts such as the OLPC, and Microsoft&#39;s efforts to reduce prices in developing countries. But there&#39;s been criticism about these efforts. People have been saying, well, a $200 laptop isn&#39;t going to do a kid much good if he doesn&#39;t live to age five. With this in mind what do you think technology companies -- that need to make profits -- can do to spur development in emerging markets?Gates: Companies make their contribution by both giving some cash to broad areas but also by having their products in their area of expertise be tailored and donated to people who are poor. So in the case of Microsoft, we went and got involved in putting PCs in libraries. We went to Chile to put PCs in the libraries there, so by having a really robust machine connected to the Internet, going through the training, working with the government, getting all the pieces right -- we learned how to do that in the United States -- those projects were incredibly successful.So while I admit for my Foundation the top priority is health, Microsoft is about software. It&#39;s got a product, that&#39;s what the company knows. And that&#39;s where, in its activities around the world, its helping educators, it&#39;s helping kids who have curiosity, and I think that&#39;s fantastic for Microsoft to do that.I&#39;m taking the success that Microsoft had and putting tens of billions of that into the basic needs where breakthroughs can be made -- and there, we&#39;ll be using software. We&#39;ll be using mobile phones, we&#39;ll doing data gathering, so we&#39;ll be using software as a tool to do it. I wish every company was doing as much as Microsoft is to take their expertise and look into that developing world and see what role they can play . We&#39;ve had great impact, great success, and it helps us attract better employees. It makes our employees feel good because we were founded on the idea of empowerment. We&#39;re not just talking about it, we&#39;re out in over a hundred countries delivering it in a significant way.
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Microsoft boss Bill Gates tells the eletronics industry that more technologies should be working together.