Apple, Inc., CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates will make a rare joint appearance at The Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference this year. The two men will jointly discuss the history and future of the digital revolution in an unrehearsed, unscripted, onstage conversation on May 30 with “D” co-producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
Both executives have made multiple individual appearances at the conference, which will celebrate its fifth anniversary this year, and is known as “D5″. But this will be their first joint session at “D,” and a highly unusual event.
In addition to participating in the joint session with Mr. Gates, Mr. Jobs will appear on his own in a separate segment at “D5″ to discuss the latest developments at Apple, including new ventures such as the iPhone and Apple TV.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will also show up at the conference in his own segment, to discuss Windows, Office, the Xbox, Zune, and other topics.
MacDailyNews Take: What’s Ballmer’s presentation called, How to Abuse Monopolies and Create Failures? Or perhaps they’ll go for simple-yet-sublime and call it Chanting Lummox Sans Antiperspirant? Or maybe they’ll just go for truth-in-advertising/even-a-windows-sufferer-could understand with Big Dumb Bald Monkey? We hope they use a strong cage. How to Make Billions via Fortuitous Dorm Assignment?
The D5 conference will also feature other leaders in technology and media. Confirmed speakers include Google CEO Eric Schmidt; CBS President Les Moonves; Cisco CEO John Chambers; film director George Lucas; online pioneer Steve Case; Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore; News Corp. President Peter Chernin; Palm founder Jeff Hawkins; and Steve Chen and Chad Hurley of YouTube.
Like past editions of the conference, D5 will be an all-interview event, without canned speeches. The conference, which is sold out, will take place May 29-31 near San Diego, California. For more information, see http://d.wsj.com/
To see past D videos, and to sign up to be notified when the all-new D Web site launches, users can go to http://www.allthingsd.com
D5 is sponsored by Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Houlihan Lokey, IDA Ireland, Kodak, NYSE Group, and Qualcomm.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Jay" for the heads up.]
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