Bill Gates Speaks Out 571
neoform writes "The Seattle PI is running an interesting interview with Bill Gates." In the article Gates comments on Vista, Google, and a few other pertinent topics. In an amusing bit of related news, an anonymous reader let us know that CNET is also running an interview with Gates. In the CNET interview Gates gives a very interesting response to one of the interview questions. "CNET: So that would be the philosophical difference between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point? Gates: Well, we don't know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan and we disagree with that."
Healthy Competition (Score:3, Insightful)
He's still in denial... (Score:5, Insightful)
What can one say to something so far off the mark?
Is anyone taken back by this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:3, Insightful)
How else do you explain the sudden amount of creativity and motivation that Microsoft is having with its interface?
Microsoft and the Windows folks are going to act all high and mighty that their OS now has these cool features, but they will not realize what is driving it. Competition.
"I don't think anybody anticipated..." (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what was IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture)? Chopped liver?
That's right up there with "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
what do we have to hear now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To Clarify Gates's Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Total World Domination (Score:3, Insightful)
The same as Linux's; but yet that's fine when we're talking about Linux? I call shennigans.
But What Are You For, Google? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Out of context (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but the Slashdot editors know that the current presentation will generate more site traffic than showing the quote in context. Every bit as sleazy as any politician or used car salesman out there.
Re:In Summary: (Score:3, Insightful)
Google slogan: "Do no evil".
Microsoft slogan: "The Devil You Know".
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the slogan difference that Bill Gates was referring to. Still, a hilarious way to sum things up in the interview. "We disagree with the other company's slogan." Genius business insight there, buddy.
It's like people who's entire political philosophies are capable of being summed up by bumper stickers. You just feel sad for them.
Re:He's still in denial... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:1, Insightful)
Competition doesn't make money. Competition drives down profit margins and increases the amount of work required for success.
Conversely, operating a monopoly allows you to slap premium prices on shoddy products and rake in the cash, as long as you are adept at keeping the government off your back.
Re:He's still in denial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh, what a poor way to cover up Windows' inadequacies when it comes to networking.
Nice to see people aren't buying this crap.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kinda like talking with any politician, since M$ft wants to compete with Google they have to disagree at some level, even if they're trying to do the same things. It's like asking Ted Kennedy what he thinks about Bush's plan for, whatever, helping little children. Whatever the Bush plan is, Ted's gotta disagree with it, that's how the game is played.
That is, even if Gates secretely admired google's plan and slogan and is competing out of jealousy and fear of losing market and customer brand name recognition, he must try to publically discredit google somehow. Even if he thinks they're doing all the right things, he has to discredit it somehow, they're taking people's freedom away, etc. Unfortunately, when the PC Pope speaks, too many listen.
Guess Bill's part of the antidisenplatformization movement.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
More accurately, they want to continue to be on top and also to be in control. They have money, in fact so much money that they often don't know what to do with it. Like the 30 billion in cash that they had last year and were trying to figure out what to do with.
Competition doesn't make money. Competition drives down profit margins and increases the amount of work required for success.
Or, in MS's case, real competition (such as the threat posed from Linux and OS X) gives them a slap in the face and makes them realize that its sink or swim time again. If they don't get their shit together, they are going to go on the steady slope down to the bottom of the lake.
Conversely, operating a monopoly allows you to slap premium prices on shoddy products and rake in the cash, as long as you are adept at keeping the government off your back.
Which is exactly why people should think before giving in to a shiny new feature. In ANY product. You may be helping yourself in the short run, but in the long run taking the easy way out will lead to difficulties 3, 5, 10 and 20 years from now.
Is it any coincidence that Microsoft is releasing this shiny new version of Office and also considering the subscription based pricing? I don't think so. They know exactly what they are doing.
The Open Source Hair Salon (Score:5, Insightful)
"There are some zealots that think there should be no software jobs, that we should all, like, cut hair during the day and write code at night."
Either he just doesn't get it, or he's refusing to acknowledge what open source software (and the GPL) really is. Software development *is* services... It's professional services. Work you get paid for. Work you pay someone else to do. Open source spurs innovation because it both allows you to stand on someone elses shoulders and forces you to make your shoulders available to someone else.
That OSS developers cut hair for a living to support their "habit" is ridiculous. Would you let a slashdot member cut *your* hair?
Re:Healthy Competition (Score:2, Insightful)
Your missing the point of capitalism. Competition is good for the consumer because it breeds innovation, but it is not necessarily good for the competitors involved. From MS's point of view it's a much better idea to kill or buy out their competition, than let it fester, compete with them, and steal their market share. So no, they don't have to learn to accept anything.
gates, google (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps their biggest mistake was pissing Microsoft off so much with the Kai Fu Lee deal. In trying to overachieve on too many goals, the last thing they need is Redmond as an enemy. The last thing they need is Ballmer and Gates fighting them every inch of the way.
The amount of clout, IP, and coding prowess that MS wields should not be trivialized. The way to kill MS is to silently make them irrelevant and avoiding a war. Google just blew that strategy.
And the kicker is that billg's graciousness in the interview towards google actually tells me that MS has already won even before the coming battle starts.
Re:What in heaven's name is he talking about? (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's be fair. The average PDP-11 running UNIX in 1980 wasn't facing the same threats when the network cable was plugged in, than today's WinXP box. That takes away from the impact of your point somewhat, IMHO.
Now it's intriguing that he's suggesting that it might be necessary to "only listen to certain other systems". That sounds an awful lot like a DRM-style situation for the Internet. Imagine not being able to connect to an FTP server running on Windows, only because you're using Mozilla or the FreeBSD ftp client, and such non-Microsoft products are deemed "insecure".
Now you're getting it. He says the apparently nonsensical things he says, not because he's so bloody naive as to believe it, but because he's spreading the message he wants others to believe, and shaping the playfield to his preference. PR 101. And one has to remember that, in the wider world outside computing, BG speaks as an Authority. What he says regarding computing is often taken as gospel by many people; heck, I'm sure most of us know people like that in our own families.
Remember, interviews like this aren't about Truth and Accuracy, but Perception and Message (and a touch of Sensationalism). The message here is "We're no worse than anyone else, and soon we'll have to lock out those other nasty underhanded software products to Innovate!"
TFOAE
Gates Drunk? (Score:5, Insightful)
At any point in our history, we've had competitors who were better at doing something. Novell was the best at file servers. Lotus was the best at spreadsheets. WordPerfect was the best at word processing.
So its not just me. Even the Founder knows they suck (comparatively)
Right now, because of the breadth of what we do, we have that in many areas. Nokia is way ahead of us in phones; we're closing the gap. Sony is ahead of us in video games. We're just on the verge of something (the Xbox 360) that will help us close the gap there. In Web search, Google is the far-away leader. Big honeymoon for them. Even if they do "me, too" type stuff, people think, "wow." nd Apple in music has done a fantastic job.
We interupt this Bill Gates Honesty Break to bring you the following.
In those areas where somebody else has done well, that's great. We'll match what they do, we'll bring new things to it, do it better and integrate it in with other things. And so it's very healthy for the consumer. We see that in search, we see it in music. It's not new at all that that's out there
Translation: We make inferior products, bundle them, make exclusive deals, failing all else we buy the competitor and bury/integrate their product.
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
No, money is good, but growth potential is everything. valuation is based on potential. They have to grow. they can't stop changing. if they do, they become a commodity. they might as well sell electricity or water. they fear that software may cease to be a growth industry. that's why everything has to look shiny and new and improved all the time. that's why they fear open source. it's not the money. They do want cool features.
Uhhh, Mr. Gates? Unix? Multics, fer chrissake? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, he's right there ... if this quote was from like 1962. Before there was teh webbs, before there was teh netz, before there was teh Microsoft, before there was teh UNIX, there was an operating system that was designed from the ground-up to incorporate advanced/enhanced security features (relative to the times), and it was called Multics.
Unix has been established as a legitimate operating system since the 1970's. I guess you could say the "C" version would be the birthday of modern Unix, so we're talking 1973. Was Bill Gates out of grammar school yet at this point?
Native TCP/IP support was built into the kernel in the early 1980's, a few years. http://www.computerhope.com/unix/xenix.htm [http]">Micros oft itself created a Unix port, and it probably doesn't surprise any of us that SCO ended up with it. The similarities between how SCO and MS behave in the industry and market aren't totally coincidence.
So, Bill, you HAD a network-ready and relatively secure operating system 25 goddam years ago. And you're saying that it's just now that anybody cares about networking, communications, or information security? Security has been a concern since the fucking 1960's, and your own friggen company had a Unix build.
Jesus H. I normally don't jump on the bash-Microsoft bandwagon and often grapple with some of YOU Slashdot turds for doing so, but if this isn't a bunch of merry sunshine blown up the collective asses of industry journalism, I don't know what is.
Re:But What Are You For, Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations have a legal mandate to make money. It doesn't mean they can do no good, just that they are opposed to good deeds if they result in the haemorraging of cash.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the work Google do (at the moment at least). Just don't expect them to honestly set out inspirational visions for their future.
Re:To Clarify Gates's Quote (Score:2, Insightful)
Except when someone intentionally missquotes Torvalds or Stallman or Perens, in which case it's called 'FUD'
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention AOL (which consistently beat MSN throughout the dial-up era)*, Palm (held off Microsoft for several years in the PDA market), Nokia (fending off Smartphone via Symbian), TiVo (mopped the floor with UltimateTV - leading to Windows Media Center improved annually), Adobe's PDF format, Sun's Java, and Sony (Playstation2). And Google thrashing Microsoft in search.
While Apple's Mac OS X is forcing improvements with Windows, its in the other media areas that Apple is thrashing Microsoft interests consistently. The cablecos and satellite companies have settled on Apple supported H.264 as the HD codec of choice over Windows Media. The Windows Media codec may be eliminated from the Blu-Ray format before its market debut, and as it stands, H.264 is also supported with the HD-DVD format. The Microsoft supported DVD+R spec did not trump the Apple backed DVD-R format and now combo drives are the norm. And Apple's iPod/iTunes support of Dolby's AAC audio codec has seriously frakked up Microsoft's WMA format dominating the MP3 player market.
If Corporate America ever is successfully persuaded to switch to Linux or OS X and open source application suite software, Microsoft will be toast...and I don't mean that application by Roxio either.
*Forgot to mention how AOL's AIM (and AIM supporters like iChat) is still more popular than MSN Messenger.
Better Competitors?? (Score:2, Insightful)
"'At any point in our history, we've had competitors who were better at doing something,' Gates said in an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, underscoring the fact that it wouldn't be unprecedented to come from behind now."
If Microsoft's competitors are better at doing things than they are, then does M$ prevail?????
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:George Bush does not care about Slashdot. (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
That can't even be blamed on ignorance, because he knows better. That is genuine, straight up, in your face and looking you in the eye FUD. Maybe they need that on the boxes of Vista when it comes out:
Windows Vista: The ultimate software for computers that are not connected.
He does not realize todays market if different (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft had a decisive advantage over Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell and IBM (OS/2) which was the monopoly power controlling the OEM (PC manufactures) and the "suite" killer app (MS Office). The same advantage (including unlimited cash) applied against Netscape.
But when you look at where Microsoft competed without a monopoly advantage or dominant market share their track record is poor. They still can out spend many (Sony for games) but Google has several key advantages, huge market capitalization (translates to abundant cash) and market leadership where the MS monopoly (and cash) may not be an advantage for Microsoft.
It is possible that its a whole new market place that Bill Gates has very little successful track record to use to compete with. Google (and in some ways Apple too) are ahead of Microsoft, delivering amazing products before Microsoft is in the market. Despite Microsoft's history of slowly wearing down the competition by experimenting with well funded solutions (V3 seems was often the transition point), Microsoft may be in for a humbling market experience.
Between Google, Linux and Apple (as a leading alternative to the MS desktop), I'd bet against Microsoft's previous golden touch.
This could be the shift that helps level the playing field. The consumer and the market benefits. No monopoly historically has prevailed forever, it is doubtful Microsoft will be the exception.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I realize it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad the Microsoft execs disagree with that.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:1, Insightful)
this is a silly way of thinking.
all humans share ideas and knowledge together and have been doing so since the begining of time. no man is an island and standing on the shoulders of giants...
that means that the stuff in your head, wasn't generated out of nothingness, but came from other people and sources. there is no creation but merely sharing of matter, energy and time.
shakespeare didn't just come up with those stories and plays out of nothing... they came from his experience and other authors from his time as well as the past.
and it's true microsoft innovates very little, especially compared to other companies. but you must remember, sharing ideas and what people like to call "ripoffs" aren't the same thing.
if and when you get an idea that hasn't existed anywhere else in the universe in any form, then please feel free to slap me and tell me i'm an idiot. and you are free also to slap everyone else who shares ideas and reconfigures them to make a slightly different form. (which is everyone)
i just see this faulty line of thinking too often to stay silent.
this is a fundamental way of living and existence.
1st law of thermodynamics.
there is no innovation in that sense but what we recognize as "innovation".
it's only another form that has always existed.
at least Michaelangelo was aware of and honest about it...
The art of The Big Lie. (Score:2, Insightful)
The level of balls it takes to tell this big a lie when you know better (and he does know better... Microsoft Xenix was multiuser and networked and was set up for an environment where all the computers were connected together) is astonishing.
His tongue should have burned to ashes in his mouth before it let him say such a thing. He should have been struck by lightning, the plague, and embarassing warts before he got to those lying words. With shingles and boils he should have been afflicted. How can there be any justice in the world when a man can make a claim like that and it passes unchallenged?
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
hawk
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to disagree with you here. Google was driven to the front of the pack through word of mouth. It was/is a damn fine search engine. How many Google commercials, advertisements do you see? Advertising for gmail for instance was done purely by word of mouth by allowing it through invites only.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is the anti-MS.
They do the opposite. They market via word of mouth, and by having solid, simple, well-designed products. At google, the baseline is elegant, practical, high-performance engineering. If a product isn't *really* good, it never leaves the lab. If a product isn't *near-perfect*, it never leaves beta. Contrast that with MS. Most often, version 1.0 and 2.0 of an MS product is terrible, or even non-functioning. I'm not taking about beta versions, or lab versions; I'm taking about the crap they sell to people. Even these 1.0 versions, however, are introduced with all kinds of pomp and circumstance.
Enter Google. When was the last time you 'bought' a Google product without *knowing* that it was awesome? The products that they do 'sell' (ads, google earth, and google appliances) they sell unobtrusively, and I've never met someone who purchased one that didn't already *know* that the product was have extremely high quality. They do most of their development in-house, and they pursue paths of research almost as radical as the MIT media lab, but with a healthy dose of practicality.
The search engine was not innovative.
A clear, concise search engine, using page rank, a *very new* way of relating millions of search results WAS innovative. They continue this trend even now, its just not as well publicized, because they have to keep up with the Search Engine Optimization firms.
Maps and driving directions are NOT innovative.
Clear, easy to use, visually attractive maps, with a natural language interface, a well-documented API, an excellent ties to the aforementioned search engine?
That's innovative.
Not all innovation is flashy user interfaces and silicon gadgets. There is such a thing as innovative database design, and brilliant code.
Google is not out-Microsofting anyone. Microsoft's business strategy is well-known: Entering an existing market, form an alliance with the 2nd strongest player, gut that players efforts with your own product, and outspend the top player on marketing dollars. That's it.
I've *never* seen an intrusive ad for Google. I've *never* heard of Google screwing another business.
I've *never* heard of Google participating in dishonest negotiation.
While fanboys may choose to deny it, MS's tendancy towards these underhanded tactics is well-documented, both in terms of court cases (where they tend to PAY the settlement for being guilty, and move on (Novell (DR-DOS), Stacker, etc. .
Google's had a bit of luck, but they've also put a lot of hardwork and intelligence into their business.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has built its empire on marketing, dollars, manipulation, and outright fraud. They've even been found guilty, and forced to pay settlements; but to MS, that's the cost of doing business.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:4, Insightful)
Software might have been designed for computers to be interconnected, but in general it wasn't designed very well. You had all this software that was insecure by design, the same thing "we" (slashdotters, unix geeks, whatever) tend to give Microsoft a lot of trouble for. But let's face it, BIND, sendmail, and a lot of other packages were never really designed with security as the primary priority, and if you're allowing connections from anyone anywhere, that has to be the very first thing on your mind. Most common legacy software's security aspects are a retrofit and as such has turned out to be pretty ineffectual.
I'm no Microsoftie, but what he said is pretty true. Most software, even today, is really not secure. Most software is not really designed for, say, collaboration. And almost no operating system is really designed for networking from the ground up. There is a very clear delineation between local and remote resources and what you are allowed to do with them. Granted, that makes sense from the standpoint that how you have to handle those resources is necessarily different, but it doesn't have to be so different to the user. If everything were like CORBA (or DCOM, or whatever) and we had some sort of strong security that functioned at both the local and remote level, and all applications used "safe" libraries for things like string handling, and so on and so forth, then perhaps this wouldn't be so true.
In Unix, you have to go through some rigamarole to have (for example) a named pipe that goes somewhere on another computer. So I wouldn't say that Unix is designed for computers to be connected today. Some Unix software is, yes, and TCP/IP comes with the OS, but without third party software (like netcat) networking is still the thing in Unix that puts the lie to the concept that everything is a file.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
The mainstream Internet is 10 years old. Nobody should know this better than Microsoft because it caught them completely by surprise and yet it made Windows 95 a huge success. And here we are people are still being told not to open email attachments because the Microsoft "operating system" can't handle it. It's like a crank call making your phone explode in your hands.
When you compare what little Microsoft has built since 1995 to what Apple has done since 1997 when they bought NeXT and Steve Jobs rejoined the company, it's a scandal. When Mac OS X was first released in early 2001 there was a question of will Apple be able to do this thing? Now we have seen regular releases every 12-18 months since then, getting inarguably better as well as faster on the same hardware, and on the Microsoft side once again people are waiting for an "oft-delayed update to Windows" that is leaking features and still no end in sight to the DOS-on-Internet malaise.
Microsoft has yet to release an operating system that hews to the most basic security practices, like closing unused ports by default. Their update system is a mess compared to Apple's and yet Microsoft systems need the updates even more.
Here you guys are saying well he's technically right
Verbal gymnastics to compare well vs google (Score:4, Insightful)
Billgatus of Borg:
In google's own words:
(my emphasis added)
Note how Billgatus of Borg conveniently omits the part about making it universally accessible, as if to avoid an embarrassing contrast between Google's track record and the constant roadblocks his own company puts up.
While Google was building its business with open standards and on the same level playing field that other search engines could use, MSFT was exploiting the closed nature of its Word format against its competitors. While Google was busy adding support for a wide variety of browsers, MSFT was breaking HTML standards in the hopes that only IE would remain standing. He had to leave that little detail out, otherwise it would dredge up memories of how MSFT became a convicted monopolist, and that would clash with the sparkling Mr. Clean image he was trying to project.
And useful? I certainly find it more useful if searches return what I'm searching for instead of just ads. If MSFT manages to kill Google, I would expect search results to degenerate back to the highest bidder model of ads mixed into the search results. Google has done a much better job of managing their PR with this, steering clear of hotmail-like flashing ads and pagerank gambits and maintaining some semblance of believability. And, they've done it without pulling their hair (or toupees) out, or throwing chairs or lodging the sort of epithets one would expect from a knuckle-dragging world wrestling federation circus act. It's a contrast that had to be swept under the carpet.
So, how does The Collective answer to Google's mission statement? (voice=polyphonic Borg collective + squeaky Billgatus)
(and I would sardonically add) ...in a EULA-bound fashion, so that we can revise the agreement at any time to, in effect, appropriate the intellectual property rights to ourselves, without
having to spend a cent storing it. It shall all be
assimilated. Eventually people will have to buy our systems just to
access that information and Google will find itself locked out by our
DRM. Resistance is futile. (/sardonicity)
Also, what's this talk about "giving" tools to people? My, how generous that sounds. Does he mean like another toolbar? Gee, thanks. Or perhaps he means a tool in the sense of a talking paperclip? Or maybe a 3-D flipping crowbar to open up those DRM files long enough to read their EULAs? Or how about a free spyware remover that doesn't remove the #1 brand of spyware, which has a EULA claiming it is illegal to try to remove it. Hmmm. Everyone bow to the unbounded generosity?
One thing's for sure, Google's API has gotten onto his radar, so I'm guessing they may also try to beam down another shipment of EULA-laden developer tools in the hopes they can cut Google off at the mindshare pass. They are trying to kill Google, but for the moment it looks like they will have to brainwa^Wtrain a lot more nine-year-olds. Anyone who knew what was going on a scant few years ago and strains long enough to remember it would have to conclude that this is just another whitewash.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
No software was setup for all the computers to be connected together? I guess he never heard of Unix.
The internet would not have exploded into popular worldwide culture were it not for Windows' widespread adoption into the business world.
That made computer familiarity fairly common amongst non-nerds and brought down the price to "reasonable" levels for non-enthusiasts and opened up the internet for many more people.
I really wanted an Apple ][ when I was a teenager but the cost was way too high.
Re:The art of The Big Lie. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats nice.
I ran a network of almost 50 multi-user Xenix systems hooked together with OpenNET, supporting 500 users, sharing the network with and talking to VAXes running DECNET and VMSNET and DOS PCs running Microsoft Lan Manager. That's Microsoft Xenix, Copyright 1982-1984, networked together over Ethernet running multiple network protocols. It had a better networked file system than NFS that gave us remote access to devices and named pipes. I could sit on a VMS box and talk to a process on a Xenix box over a named pipe on Xenix. I could sit on one Xenix box and open
And Microsoft threw all that away and went back to a single-user operating system with NO security at all... and even with all the potential of the NT kernel in hand they have YET to be implement enough local security to keep users from becoming "root" without locking them down into a 'kiosk' mode, and NOW they have the gall to say that nobody could have done better.
EVERYONE did a better job of computer security than Microsoft did in Windows.
INCLUDING Microsoft!