Steve Jobs versus Bill Gates

[Belmondo]

I have to give a lesson on technological innovations, so I've been doing some research on the life and work of Steve Jobs. He's a fascinating character but how does he compare to his eternal rival Bill Gates?

One thing's for sure: Jobs was a much better speaker than Gates. Those presentations of his were fantastic and very entertaining. And, more importantly, everytime he presented a new product, he caused a revolution; Microsoft, by the contrary, doesn't seem too keen on taking chances.

And the second big question: will Apple survive without Steve Jobs? The new iPad3 is wonderful but it is hardly 'resolutionary'. As far as I can tell, it's just an iPad2 with better screen resolution and 4G.

 

[HughJass]

Will you teach your students about how they both got filthy rich from slave labor and a lot of atrocious corporate behaviour? If I was a teacher I would never miss an opportunity to get on my soapbox like that!

As far as innovation is concerned apple stuff is just overpriced blingy consumer junk. People seem mesmorised with it. What is it an iPad can do which wasn't possible before? There's nothing really new happening there.


Ray Kurzweil has some pretty cool ideas and achievements under his belt as far as innovation is concerned. He might make for a more interesting lesson perhaps....

 

[virtuality]

I personally don't buy all that publicity that they were/are rivals. In the 90s, MS not only financially bailed Apple out but kept them in business by making MS products compatible with the Macs. If they were eternal enemies, why would MS go into trouble to save Apple?

I guess Gates must have realised monopoly would slow down the take up of technology and he needed someone like Jobs to "rival" him.

Call me sour grapes if you want, but I also don't buy into "How Great Apple Is". They are certainly one of the best marketed companies and they certainly know how and when to bring a product out, but most of their "innovations" were either bought or taken from third parties. As Bill Gates once said, Apple had a company like Xerox in the neighbourhood where they could get their "innovative" ideas from, he was referring to the graphical user interface that Apple sort of claims to have invented and also sort of blames MS for stealing from them, which in fact was invented by Xerox. The same goes for the pointing device, aka the mouse.

I personally think both Jobs and Gates were clever enough to realise what was needed in the market, ie they had that vision and in a way they were visionaries and we all have to thank them for that. They both contributed in different ways to the way we view technology today, but I'm just pointing out that they weren't the enemies that people think they were.

 

[HughJass]

Call me sour grapes if you want, but I also don't buy into "How Great Apple Is". They are certainly one of the best marketed companies and they certainly know how and when to bring a product out, but most of their "innovations" were either bought or taken from third parties. As Bill Gates once said, Apple had a company like Xerox in the neighbourhood where they could get their "innovative" ideas from, he was referring to the graphical user interface that Apple sort of claims to have invented and also sort of blames MS for stealing from them, which in fact was invented by Xerox. The same goes for the pointing device, aka the mouse.

Yep. They're just assembling and integrating existing developments. And then Microsoft copy them.


Chomsky has written about how the most important technological developments in America are actually developed by the military, funded by the taxpayer. The private sector is enjoying a lot of free r&d.

 

[Cassin]

This forum just has sunshine flowing through its veins

 

[somone uk]

i would rate bill gates as being more innovative, but one thing i have realised is 99% of the human population don't care how innovative something is, they only care about how good it looks, so i guess that's apples contribution

no one cared when bill gates presented a tablet computer
but everyone cheered when everyone was shown the ipad 8 years later

as far as the better businessman, bill gates made more money and i do think he was a more honest marketer, he sold the necessary product, honestly specified (without stupid dumbening down like "retina display"), and he wasn't a complete arsehole of a boss unlike jobs

bill gates was a more humble rival as well, jobs has numerously accused gates as being outdated and uninnovative (contrary to fact), gates never really did such a thing, jobs was more a fashion designer than a real tech-head

will apple suvive with tim co?ck? , well the apple fans are ridiculously loyal so i'll say yes, jobs did all the brand building

 

[Cassin]

You folks are too cynical

If you want to boil it down Bill made software easy to use and homogenous across the world.

Steve summed everything up and made it handheld & mobile

 

[virtuality]

You folks are too cynical

If you want to boil it down Bill made software easy to use and homogenous across the world.

Steve summed everything up and made it handheld & mobile

Actually, I'm gonna claim the opposite.

Some of the popular buzzwords in the late 90s and early 2000 were "mobile", "connectivity", etc and MS was one of the companies really pushing the idea. They designed Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Windows Tablet, etc. They had Windows running on tablets 10 years before Apple. Ie, they wanted to create that ecosystem around Windows with the connectivity for all the handheld devices. Hence your claim that it was meant to be homogeneous.

Apple on the other hand, especially since the second coming of the Messiah aimed to make "easy to use products", although I somewhat disagree that Apple products are intuitive to use. Apple never talked about handheld devices, IMHO they saw an opportunity and the whole timing was right and it worked out for them. The hardware industry was just about mature enough to handle the iPhone and the iPad. Indeed, it is Apple that is the homogeneous company with the iTunes and the whole iApple ecosystem. And now they want to expand that with the Apple TV, it'll be all connected at home.

 

[Cassin]

Yeah well all that matters is what was done, not the original intent. I think we're talking two different things my friend.

And you need to look further back than the late 90's and 2000. Computers had been around before then.

Computers used to be one many different operating systems and windows worked so well that most people had one so computing was more, homogeneous. For instance while your office might have had Macintosh your contractor had commodore and the client had a Texas Instruments operating system.


And Apple TV has failed to garner much interest. Roku and it's openness is dominating. Apple isn't going to spend the money on licensing like others will.

 

[MrBastard]

Bill gates seem to be far the most generous of them :
-Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
-The Giving Pledge

The official website states that it "is an effort to invite the wealthiest individuals and families in the United States to commit to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy." As of April 28, 69 billionaires in the US have joined this campaign and pledged to give 50% or more of their wealth to charity.[1] A minimum total of at least $125 billion has been promised from the first 40 donors based on their aggregate wealth as of August 2010.[2]

 

[HughJass]

Gates certainly looks more generous than his colleague:

The wealthiest Americans often live as though they and their children had nothing to gain from investments in education, infrastructure, clean-energy, and scientific research. For instance, the billionaire Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, recently helped kill a proposition that would have created an income tax for the richest 1 percent in Washington (one of seven states that has no personal income tax). All of these funds would have gone to improve his state's failing schools. What kind of society does Ballmer want to live in--one that is teeming with poor, uneducated people? Who does he expect to buy his products? Where will he find his next batch of software engineers?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harri ... 02480.html

 

[kc444]

Yeah, I'm sure those poor Chinese workers would be relaxing in hot tubs right now if they didn't have to work. How would you fund your welfare programs if not for these greedy businessmen? And lastly.. we've tried the more funding thing. Our schools got worse, but the buildings look great now. Until liberals realize that someone like Steve Jobs is better at satisfying the consumer than labor unions ever will be, students will continue to get a poor education and parents will remain unsatisfied.

*ahem*

Steve Jobs was the better innovator, in my opinion. He had the ability to bring the full experience to everyone no matter what their skill level is. While I agree that it's "just" a higher screen resolution, think about the difference between standard definition and HDTV. You won't find many people who refuse to upgrade their TVs because it's only a higher resolution.

 

[Belmondo]

[...] They designed Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Windows Tablet, etc. [...]

Yes, but they also did Window Vista.

I wasted a small fortune on that crap.

I'm no expert, of course, but Vista and many of MS products seem like serious cases of planned obsolescence.

 

[Belmondo]

[...] no one cared when bill gates presented a tablet computer
but everyone cheered when everyone was shown the ipad 8 years later

[...]

Interesting.

I didn't know about the Tablet PC, I thought tablets were Apple's invention.

Did Gates' tablet feature a touchscreen technology? It makes all the difference, I guess - it is, quite literally, the world at your fingertips.

 

[HughJass]

Yeah, I'm sure those poor Chinese workers would be relaxing in hot tubs right now if they didn't have to work.

I missed the solid argument you provided which morally justifies workers working themselves into the ground for chickenfeed while the company makes huge profits.

the neoliberal adage about a humiliating, low paying, sh*t job being better than no job at all doesn't carry much weight when the workers start suiciding off the tops of the buildings like at foxconn

How would you fund your welfare programs if not for these greedy businessmen?

lol what on earth are you talking about? Welfare programs are funded by the government from tax revenues.

And lastly.. we've tried the more funding thing. Our schools got worse, but the buildings look great now. Until liberals realize that someone like Steve Jobs is better at satisfying the consumer than labor unions ever will be, students will continue to get a poor education and parents will remain unsatisfied.

yeah because it was steve jobs who got workers the minimum wage, occ. health and safety, weekends, public holidays etc, not the unions. And it definetely isn't the business leaders actively trying to grind those hard won things down to nothing.


you live in a strange,strange world dude!

 

[Cassin]

[...] no one cared when bill gates presented a tablet computer
but everyone cheered when everyone was shown the ipad 8 years later

[...]

Interesting.

I didn't know about the Tablet PC, I thought tablets were Apple's invention.

Did Gates' tablet feature a touchscreen technology? It makes all the difference, I guess - it is, quite literally, the world at your fingertips.

Belmondo seems to have a skewed version of this.

The thing Microsoft unveiled was basically a laptop without a lid. You had to use a stylus to do anything, was big and bulky. The prototype was a mess. And it was mainly pitched as a business tool. Which is fine Steve Jobs made media mobil and fun.

These old tablets had awful screens that left those pixalated LCD trails if your finger touched it.

Henry Ford didn't invent the car but he invented the best one for the masses. He made it the easiest to use.

 

[kc444]

How would you fund your welfare programs if not for these greedy businessmen?

lol what on earth are you talking about? Welfare programs are funded by the government from tax revenues.

:doh:

You're right. It wasn't Bill Gates who gave us the minimum wage but the trade unions of highly skilled workers. By putting a floor on the wage that a worker can earn, the poorest and workers with the least skills ended up losing their jobs because it was more desirable to hire union workers at that wage. The opposition to minimum wage laws came mostly from the poor, not the wealthy. You can see the same thing happening with illegal immigrants today. They're accused of "stealing jobs" from Americans because they're willing to work for less than minimum wage. Those wanting for this an e-verify system for this reason are trying to reduce competition so that they can be paid higher wages themselves, not to save immigrants from being exploited.