Gates & Jobs, Together Again

Larry Magid: Microsoft And Apple Founders Share Stage For First Time In 24 Years

(CBS) 
"In the consumer market," Jobs observed, "one can make a pretty strong case that outside of Windows on the PC, it's hard to see examples of hardware and software being uncoupled working well."

For his part, Gates acknowledged that "in some product categories, such as music players, it makes more sense to integrate hardware and software." Perhaps copying Apple’s success with the iPod, Microsoft makes its own Zune music players and makes both the software and hardware for the popular Xbox game consol.

Both Jobs and Gates believe that personal computers will continue to play an important role, as more and more services migrate to the Internet. As Jobs put it: "The PC has proved to be very resilient" and will continue to be the "hub of your digital life."

Gates predicted that the PC will continue to evolve, especially in terms of how we interact with computers, pointing out that touch screens, speech input and "vision input" will become important over the next few years. Earlier in the day, Microsoft introduced a new "Surface" PC with a 30-inch touch screen about the size of a coffee table that the company will release later this year for use in hotels, casinos and other businesses.

There were no arguments between the two men, but there was an awkward moment - when Jobs was asked about those Apple’s ubiquitous and amusing "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials. Jobs said that the "PC Guy is great and that "those commercial is not to be mean. It's for the guys to like each other. The PC guy is what makes it all work." Gates just scratched his head with an incredulous look on his face.

Personally, having covered both Apple and Microsoft for the past 25 years, the evening felt like a family reunion. I felt as if I were watching two senior relatives reminisce about the good times they had in their youth.

At one point each man was asked about any qualities in the other that they wished they had. Gates said "I'd give a lot to have Steve's taste for both for people and products. I'd see Steve make decisions based on a sense or people and product. The way he does thing is different. It's magic."

Jobs said that he admired Gates' ability to create and maintain partnerships. "Because Woz (Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak) and I started the company doing the whole banana, we weren’t so good at partnering with people. In fact, Microsoft was one of the few companies that we could partner with."

"Microsoft was very good at partnering. If Apple had that in its DNA, it would have worked really well but Apple didn’t have that until a few decades later," said Jobs, who also gave Gates a great deal of credit for having "building the first software company" and being able "to stay with it all these years."

In a rather poignant comment that drew "ah"s from the crowd, Jobs summed up his relationship with Gates, quoting a line from a Beatles song: "You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead."

Surely, they do.

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A syndicated technology columnist for over two decades, Larry Magid serves as on air Technology Analyst for CBS Radio News. His technology reports can be heard several times a week on the CBS Radio Network. Magid is the author of several books including "The Little PC Book."

[time2toss]

One more point: The Personal Computer has developed its own gravity with its mass of decades of success.

Jobs & Gates have and will continue to come out with more toys, but even they cannot deny the bread & butter is in the Personal Computer, particularly with Windows.

Don't sweat it, users. PC's will be around for a long time to come, however the biggest change may be how you interact with them (may move away from the keyboard eventually)

[time2toss]

I would have given anything to see Gates come out dressed like the "I'm a PC" dude, overstuffed like he was with useless demo software.

No matter what, Apple will always be a niche computer unless they open up software development as has been the case with the PC.

People value choices, bargains, and generally complete freedom to pick & choose their applications. THAT right there is at the core of what made Windows successful.

Conversely, the one thing that no computer user wants to hear is "you can't run that on your machine", which is at the core of the apple's lesser success.

[hypnotoad72]

Both buy each other's company's stock. That's all I know.

Happy Windows PC user here. It works and having been in the industry and followed both platforms for almost two decades, Apple's own adverts are not entirely accurate. If I want a "Mac", any PC with http://www.openbsd.org is a suitable substitute, even if it won't run "OS X" native apps - plenty of substitutes exist. Why else is Apple moving toward iPods, iTV, iPhone, iWaste (google up that term), and iBlank anyway?

I see Apple moving out of the "Mac" platform entirely. It's too niche, even Adobe has culled some of its Mac products to date (such as the Premiere video editing app), and with the "Mac" being nothing more than a PC with TPM chip to ensure their hijacked open source software can't be installed on any old PC, they've put themselves at a dead end. Why spend $2000 for a new Intel-based computer with using Linux or openBSD on the same computer will achieve 99% the same result?

[michellem99-2009]

I have seen the ads the pc and mac ones. They say nothing.I think Microsoft is moving away from the home computer as we know it. I don't like the stuff Bill Gates dreams up. The Vista OS platform,a table computer.My friend saw that on TV. I don't want that junk they come up with.I am 52. Bill Gates needs to stop changing everything just cos it looks cool. I have waited years to have a computer I can use. Vista looks cool but that just it. I hope Microsoft will think of us who are older users,I am legally blind and I enjoy learning but I am a poor person

[prolegomena]

An allegory for western culture... is it synchretism, or is the dawning of a new age? Maybe both, maybe neither...