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Jobs and Gates Chat Amicably
circletimessquare writes "As noted, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs met at the D conference yesterday. AllThingsD has video of the entire convivial and historic meeting — check the highlights clip. When a reporter asked if their rivalry was overblown, Jobs offered up this joke: 'We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade' — to an apparently flummoxed Gates. Other tidbits: 'His mother loves him!' said Gates about PC Guy in the famous series of commercials. 'And we love them because they're all customers!' said Jobs about Microsoft employees working on Zune who use the iPod. Read more about the event, which also covered a lot of serious ground, such as Apple's iPhone, at CNN and the Times Online."
Has anyone ever got the sinking feeling that Gates and Jobs have been pulling the wool over our eyes with their "rivalry" for 30 years? Blatant cooperation on such a scale would have been even MORE monopolistic than Microsoft is now, and such competition has always been good press. I say they've had a weekly phone conversation since their supposed "split." Pirates of Silicon Valley, indeed.
Am I making sense, or is this just pure flamebait?
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
The people who actually make things base their self-esteem on what they accomplish, not on how insanely they hate someone else.
And that's why Microsoft's shareholders really need to kick Ballmer to the curb.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I think Gates is just socially awkward. Have you ever seen him look comfortable in public?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
MS actually has actually helped Apple more than once. They even gave them a much needed cash infusion at one point in the 90's.
I'm very tired of hearing this - because it has no basis in reality.
In 1997, Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple's non-voting stock. They sold this stock earlier this decade. Apple did not need cash at the time - the company had over $4 billion in the bank, but was losing money each quarter. They didn't need $150 million in stock sales to keep them afloat, and such a stock sale certainly couldn't be characterized as a "much needed cash infusion". It was a vote of confidence in Apple by Microsoft - a PR move and little more.
The most important announcement made on the same day was that Microsoft would continue developing Microsoft Office for the Mac. This announcement was important to Apple's future in a way that a simple $150 million stock sale simply couldn't be - it sent the message to customers that the key to productivity software compatibility for Mac users would remain updated and supported.
The most important announcement not made that day was that Apple and Microsoft settled a rather serious suit over Canyon Software's appropriation of Apple's QuickTime code, which was used by Microsoft and shipped in Windows Media Player. The suit could have been worth quite a bit more than $150 million - and would have led to a protracted court battle and some very embarrassing revelations about Microsoft's business practices during the government's antitrust investigation of the software giant.
PLEASE stop repeating the canard about Microsoft "giving" Apple a cash infusion. It's not true, and never was.