It was the first time in more than 20 years that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs shared the same stage.
The much-hyped meeting of the tech giants took place Wednesday in Carlsbad, near San Diego, at the
Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital Conference. The (short-sighted) conference organizers limited the number of journalists they let in, but luckily for us, Larry Magid
was on the scene for internetnews.com. As Magid wrote, many observers expected fireworks between Gates and Jobs, but it turned into a love fest.
I'm sure the chumminess between the two old rivals had some Microsoft-hating Apple-heads squirming in their seats. Magid wrote that,
& having covered both Apple and Microsoft for the past 25 years, the evening felt like a family reunion. I felt as if I were watching two senior relatives reminisce about the good times they had in their youth.
At one point both were asked if there were any qualities in the other person that they wished they had. Gates said, "I'd give a lot to have Steve's taste for both for people and products. I'd see Steve make decisions based on a sense of people and product. The way he does thing is different. It's magic."
Jobs said that he admired Gates' ability to create and maintain partnerships. " & (W)e weren't so good at partnering with people. In fact, Microsoft was one of the few companies that we could partner with. Microsoft was very good at partnering. If Apple had that in its DNA it would have worked really well but Apple didn't have that until a few decades later."
In a rather poignant comment that got "aahs" from the crowd, Jobs summed up his relationship with Gates by quoting a line from a Beatles song. "You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead."
In other news, there was actually some of it this week from Carlsbad (a name that makes me cringe, due to the haunting memories of a blistering hot day spent schlepping around
LegoLand, but that's another blog.)
The biggest news out of the conference was Microsoft's introduction of a new "Surface" PC with a 30-inch touch-screen about the size of a coffee table. The company will release it later this year for use in hotels, casinos and other businesses.
That's all well and good, but I covered Microsoft a few years ago when just about all Gates talked about was how Tablet PCs would change everything. So keep any table-top PC enthusiasm in check for a year or two and see if Bill is so keen on them.
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