Jobs and Gates Share the Love

It was a love fest Wednesday night at the D: All Things Digital Conference as technology industry captains Bill Gates and Steve Jobs shared the stage for the first time in 20 years. Both men reminisced about starting their respective companies and lauded each other for their technological contributions.

In the wide-ranging, 90-minute interview session, the pair discussed Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) humble beginnings; the ups, downs and challenges they have faced; competition between the two companies; and what technological innovations they foresee in the computer industry and the Internet.

"It was kind of funny to see those two together," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, told MacNewsWorld. "It's been two decades since they were both physically on the same stage together and they have both changed a lot in that time."

The Tech World's Felix and Oscar

The interview began with both men hailing the other's accomplishments when Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg posed the "What have each of you contributed to the computer industry?" to the pair.

"Bill built the first software company in the industry, and that was huge," Jobs responded. "And I think he built the first software company before anybody in our industry knew what a software company was. Bill was really focused on software."

Gates' reply began with a laugh line, "First, I'd like to clarify, I am not a Fake Steve Jobs.

"What Steve's done is quite phenomenal," he continued. "He has incredible taste and elegance. His ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal. Apple really pursued the dream of building products that we want to use ourselves. He always seems to figure out where the next industry movement will be. The industry has benefited tremendously from his work."

The two men recalled their early partnership on the Apple II computer. Revealing a little-known fact, that Microsoft designed some of the software for the computer, Apple went with the Microsoft OS over one designed by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak because "Wozniak develops an OS that's fixed point and not floating point. We're begging him to make it floating point, and he never did it. And so Microsoft had this very good floating point Basic, so we went with it," Jobs said.

"We really bet our future on the Macintosh being successful. So we were working together," Gates said.

"Remember, Microsoft wasn't in the applications business, so this was really big bet for them," Jobs added.

Rivalry? What Rivalry?

Jobs explained a statement he made 10 years ago in which he asserted that competing with Microsoft was destructive. "There were to many people at Apple and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of, 'if Apple was going to win, Microsoft had to lose,' then Apple was going to lose. But Apple didn't have to beat Microsoft. It had to remember what Apple was. Microsoft was the biggest software developer outside of Apple developing for the Mac, and Apple was weak," he said.

"So I called Bill up and we tried to patch things up," Jobs added.

The interview went a long way toward dispelling a long-held rumor of Jobs and Gates confronting each other with daggers drawn. When the topic of Apple's "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" commercials came up, "the art of those commercials is not to be mean, but for the guys to like each other. The PC Guy is great ... The PC Guy is what makes it all work," Jobs pointed out.

"They are on the radar as an opportunity," Gates explained when asked how Microsoft views Apple. "In a few cases like the Zune, if you go over to that group, they think of Apple as a competitor. They love the fact that Apple has created a gigantic market and they're going come in and try to contribute something to that."

Jobs joked that "we've kept our marriage a secret for over a decade now," when asked what the greatest misunderstanding in their relationship had been.

"Neither of us have anything to complain about, in general," Gates replied. "It's been fun to work together."

Cooperation Counts

All in all, the interview mirrored the state of affairs found throughout the technology industry today, Mukul Krishna, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, told MacNewsWorld.

"You're looking at a business environment that is more what people call cooperative," Krishna explained. "There are a lot of relationships in the technology market where you will be up against them for one bit and working with them on another bit."

During the Q&A, an audience member asked what the two had learned from each other.

"The way he does things is just different. It's magical," Gates said.

Jobs on the other hand admired Microsoft's ability to form partnerships and collaborate with different companies.

"They learned how to partner with people really well, and I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well," he replied.