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Gates and Jobs to Share A Stage
Rob wrote with a link to a Computer Business Review online article, which reports that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Apple chief Steve Jobs will make a joint
appearance at a future technologies conference in Carlsbad, California. The event is expected to last a little more than an hour, and the two computer industry magnates are expected to reflect on their pasts - while theorizing on the future. "[WSJ Tech columnist] Walt Mossberg, a co-producer of the conference who will interview the execs on-stage along with colleague Kara Swisher, said they simply invited Gates and Jobs to do the interview ... [Mossberg] declined to give any color about the questions he and Swisher are preparing, or any additional information. Most likely, Gates and Jobs will use the occasion to do some friendly sparring on their polar-opposite philosophies on personal computing. Jobs may bang on about the benefits of a software-hardware approach, while Gates may rattle off the joys of partnering with hardware partners."
I have this vision of the future Heroes episode where Peter and Syler have a showdown. Glowing hands and all.
"Jobs -- while Gates drinks a glass of water -- may bang on about the benefits of a software-hardware approach."
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Seems like a scheme to reiterate the idea that people can only choose between Mac and Windows. They are completely ignoring another big player.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
When they get on stage, the lights will drop, strobes start going off, and as chain link fences lower from the ceiling, the techno music starts and the announcer screams, TECHNOLOGY CAGE MATCH!!!!!!!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Dear Mr Jobs,
Please could you ask Bill to bring along 235 software patents or shut up.
Sincerely, everybody.
M$ = Lawful Evil (we can do what we want, our lawyers will make it legal)
Mac = Neutral Evil (we're evil, if we break the law our lawyers will get us out)
M$ = 20th level necromancer
special attack = Summon Zombie pc
Mac = 20th level enchanter
special attack = Charm people into thinking a Mac will make them cool
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
1. a spoof of those pc guy/ mac guy ads with jobs and gates in the appropriate roles. it will never happen, but still
2. an icon for jobs on slashdot. gates has his borg visor one. why not jobs with an ipod?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...when I first glanced at it, that the article headline said, "Gates and Jobs to Share A Grudge?"
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Gates: We want you to be locked in to proprietary Microsoft products
Jobs: We want you to be locked in to proprietary Apple products
Would that be east-west poles, 'cause they seem pretty close together...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
2 CEOs enter...
One CEO leaves.
Walt Mossberg: Bill Gates, what about a shared interview with Steve Jobs?
Billg: Sharing a stage with Steve Jobs? That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft.
Jobs on the other hand is gives off (regardless of if it is true or not) a degree of approachability and dramatic flair (but, some would argue, at a hinderence of reality and pesky fact).
So I'm not going to be too interested in what they say, but how they say, and most interestingly of all how they play it against each other. Although I can't shake the feeling that they will be slapping each other on the back....
I envision it starting like this:
...and I'm a PC
Jobs: I'm a Mac
Gates:
Let's not forget it wasn't long ago that MSFT basically ripped off apple [who rippled off PARC]
If Woz's explanation is correct, no one did any "ripping off" in this case. Apple paid for the rights to various parts of GUI from Xerox, and Microsoft traded rights to Apple II Basic in exchange for the GUI rights to make Windows.
I'm sure Apple technicians breathed a sigh of relief when they found it was going to be Gates instead of Ballmer. An anti-pie personal forcefield is much easier to build than an anti-chair personal forcefield. :P
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Bringing matter and antimatter so close together? What if they annihilate each other in a giant explosion?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Almost 25 years ago I was working as a programmer/analyst at Aetna Life & Casualty in Hartford CT. The company brought in Gates and Jobs for a one day seminar/meet-and-greet to help decide how seriously we should take the personal/desktop computer revolution. AL&C was at the time, of course, heavily into mainframe computing and barely looking at workgroup computing (System/38) let along personal computing.
The two gentlemen were cordial, but not particularly friendly toward each other and clearly had different visions of the future of corporate computing. Now here's the punchline: The big debate between the two was over the viability of COBOL. Jobs passionately prevailed on AL&C to drop the use of COBOL altogether (money quote: "Aetna is just about the only place left in the world that still uses COBOL, everyone else has migrated to C") while Gates was just as passionately (albeit not as charismatically) espousing the virtue of moving COBOL off of mainframes and on to the desktop.
Not a word from either of them about GUI or operating systems. Jobs was all about "new programming paradigms" and Gates was all about "the craft of programming" and how the broad range of Microsoft programming languages on PCs would accomodate that model. Gates was even promoting the idea that each programmer would have a wide range of programming languages at hand, using each one as appropriate for the task at hand like tools on a workbench. Of course, at the time, Microsoft's bread and butter was programming languages.
My, how times have changed!
GM: M$, you go first. ...although computers with Ubuntu cost the same as Windows machines... ...no, they're actually more expensive, since they're not bloated with our crap... /. mod: *goes to preferences, unchecks "willing to mod"*
M$: Trying to summon a lawyer.
GM: 1d20+43 = 63, you summoned bloodsucker bastard lawyer from ninth circle of hell. Your turn, Apple.
Apple: Trying to cast "Control minds of iPod users with vision of drm-free music"
GM: 1d20+16 = 17, forty thousand iPod users are under your command, Steve. M$?
M$: We try to sue Linux users for using software infrigning our patents.
GM: 1d20 - 16 = -4, and you do not own any useful patents. Apple?
Apple: We tell our customers that higher bitrate is worthy 30c.
GM: 1d20+27 = 41, forty one thousand users now believe you. Minus the forty thousands that were hypnotised, they've lost their mind and thus cannot reason.
Some Random Geek: But where are the Linux users?
Some Random Computer User: WTF is Linux?
GM: Some Random Computer User does not know Linux. Sorry, Some Random Geek.
Some Random Geek: But there is Ubuntu...
Dell:
Some Random Crapware Company:
Another Random Geek: It was supposed to be a fight between M$ and Apple.
Some Random Geek: Mod parent +5 insightful!
Another Random Crapware Company: This is not crap!
Dell: Let's have a deal with M$...
M$: OK, like the one with Novell?
Novell: We only want SuSE to be more compatible with M$!
Another Random Geek: You betrayed us, Novell!
Some Random Geek: Mod parent +5 insightful!
Some random
Apple: Leopard will be delayed.
Another Random Geek: Damn it! I knew that Apple is going to forget about Macs when it dropped "Computers" from its name...
Some Random Geek: Mod parent +5 insightful!
Another Random Geek: Mod parent -1 redundant...
GM: SHUT UP EVERYONE! Time's out, it's been an hour.
Shuttleworth needs to bust through the ceiling and decend to the stage suspended from a cable about halfway through the Gates/Jobs "summit", throwing Ubuntu CDs into the crowd with his full astronaut gear on. That would be entertaining, if nothing else.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
Where's Linus and Stallman? Throw them in there for Super Smash CEOs Brawl!