Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on stage, unscripted, this week at D5

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 28 May 2007 19:33

Opinion and Analysis

In terms of history, it’s but one of a handful of rare appearances together for Jobs and Gates. They also appeared on the front cover of Fortune Magazine in 1991, as seen in CNET’s 8 photo slideshow on the two men.

Despite the ‘I’m Mac and I’m a PC’ ads that have poked fun at Microsoft at Vista and XP’s expense, as well as the PC’s reputation as a ‘business machine’, Apple and Microsoft have worked together for years, all the while heavily competing with each other.

In one sense it’s a bit like what Microsoft are trying to do with Novell, which has spooked some Linux advocates a lot. Perhaps if the Linux people could act a bit more like Apple, actually working with Microsoft while still competing hell for leather could work to get Microsoft to bring you sales, just like Novell have been able to achieve. It works for Apple, after all, and look where they are.

Linux fans can’t ever see this kind of co-opetition ever happening between the Linux world at large and Microsoft, and so distrust of the Novell and Microsoft alliance continues in many Linux quarters.

Microsoft even takes pot shots at itself when comparing itself with Apple. An internal video from Microsoft parodied how Microsoft would have marketed the iPod, going from Apple’s ultra simple, yet effective and powerful presentation of just the different sides of an iPod and the Apple logo to Microsoft’s much more detailed packaging can be seen at Youtube.

Another recent gag is the ‘iPod Amnesty Bin’ at the Zune division’s lobby in Microsoft’s campus in Redmond. Seen at Flickr, the picture has been massively popular online over the past few days.

Given the next 20 to 30 years is supposed to see more technological advance than the last 2000 years put together, as long as we don’t blow ourselves up through nuclear or environmental catastrophe first, let’s hope there are some more solid signs of that future at the conference that promises all things digital.