Jobs & Gates : Buddies For Life?

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - by Chad Weirick
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  Those two names are icons in our industry and have been referred to as anything from nearly symbiotic to oil and water.  So what happens when the two of them sit down in the same room for a conference?  A mutual admiration society is formed:
"Both opened their portion of the event by praising each other's work. Jobs quickly centered on Gates' central role in the early computer industry as the first to build a company solely around software, rather than depending on customized hardware. "That was huge," Jobs said. "Bill was really focused on software."

Gates returned the favor by centering on Apple's achievements instead of his own, centering on the company's populist approach.

"Apple really pursued the dream of building products that we want to use ourselves," he said. "[Jobs] always seems to figure out where the next industry movement will be. The industry has benefited tremendously from his work."

In fact, the Microsoft chair recounted that his company's shift away from the Mac was spurred more by the ripple effect of Jobs' departure from Apple."
As nice as it is to see these two guys getting along, it's even better when they start talking about their visions of the future.  Jobs predicts an "explosion of post-PC" hardware where users will carry a wide variety of different computing devices, each suited to certain tasks.  The future according to Gates is with fewer but more flexible computing devices, such as tablet computing and presumably something along the lines of UMPCs.

The story has a few jokes about the "Get A Mac" campaign, which it seems is no longer getting under Bill Gate's skin.

Having these two men together in the same room, much less being so friendly towards each other despite their history together, just proves the old saying: "Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery."
Via: Apple Insider | News Archive | Tags: jobs, job, Gates, life
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Comments

By Kid007 on May 31, 2007

Money does not = friendship, Gates and Jobs are two of the most influential people in the world, kids want to be come like them, adults want to have their bank accounts but at the end is just money. A Friendship last and has greater value...

By bigwop on May 31, 2007

Just finished watching the entire interview, and thought it was great. I think these two guys have a deep seeded rivalry, but know to respect eachother. Their approaches are soemtimes different, but their drive and ambitions are similar.

By ice91785 on Jun 4, 2007

I am going to agree -- there is a huge amount of respect for one another and these are the two fellers that basically made the technology we all know and love what it is today.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if these two had not done what they had to the computer/technology world?

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