Microsoft’s Gates ‘not amused’ about Apple’s digital media supremacy, courts Hollywood allies

“When Apple Computer transformed the digital music scene in April 2003 by selling songs over the Internet, the richest man in the world was not amused,” Reuters reports. “Microsoft chairman Bill Gates had struggled for a decade to get his software into consumers’ home entertainment systems. Now the digital media party was finally starting, and he was not invited,” Joseph Menn writes for The Los Angeles Times.

“But the blow gave Gates new insight, motivation and some needed humility, and it intensified work on what might prove the turning point in his quest to extend Microsoft’s supremacy from the office into the living room,” Menn writes. “Just weeks after Apple’s seismic announcement, Gates and new AOL Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons settled America Online’s claim that Microsoft had crushed its Netscape software subsidiary with illegal monopolistic behavior. More important, Gates and others said, the settlement led to a new relationship that has changed the course of Microsoft’s fractious dealings with Hollywood. Since then, the Warner Brothers studio has guided its movie industry peers in quietly meeting Microsoft halfway on a range of contentious issues, setting the stage for the software giant to play gatekeeper for the home video business of the future.”

MacDailyNews Take: Hands up, including even the most delusional Stockholm Syndrome-suffering Windows-only fans: Who wants Microsoft to play gatekeeper of your living room? (crickets chirping) Thought so.

Menn continues, “Gates’ battle to succeed in video where he failed in music is far from over. For one thing, the movie studios and television broadcasters are more prone to internal disagreement than were the record companies when Apple signed them up. That makes it trickier for Microsoft to forge content deals… Even if they stick together, the content creators may stand pat, place their bets with multiple technology partners or choose someone other than Gates. In particular, few in Hollywood would be shocked to see Apple founder Steve Jobs pull another rabbit out of his hat, unveiling a perfectly thought-out system for moving paid video to computers and portable devices.”

“Whichever way it shakes out, Gates vows not to play the victim in ‘Son of iPod,'” Menn writes. “After learning a hard lesson in the digital music business, ‘we’re really having to work more closely with partners in the hardware industry and content industry, to really think through the whole end-to-end experience and make it better,’ Gates said. ‘That’s where we’ve done our mea culpa. We are fixing that.'”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Okay, so Gates is finally going to Think Different and, for once, “think through the whole end-to-end experience and make it better?” Yeah, right. So, Gates has learned his hard lesson and done his “iPod mea culpa?” Whatever happened to the Bill Gates who, back in September 2004, said sarcastically of Apple’s iPod, “Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that.”

Looks like he’s finally figured out that, wow, he couldn’t.

Bill Gates’ karma is in worse shape than Rob Glaser. Bill Gates has racked up quite a long-overdue wallop. Hopefully, “Hollywood” sees Microsoft for what it is — instead of what it likes to portray itself as — and thinks long and hard before shackling itself to Microsoft.

[UPDATE: 3:50pm EDT: added the word “sarcastically” to describe Gates’ “Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that” comment regarding iPod.]

Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple and Microsoft battle for control of future living rooms – June 01, 2005
Bill Gates: ‘I don’t believe the success of the Apple iPod is sustainable in the long run’ – May 12, 2005
Bill Gates jokes about Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ and calls Apple ‘the super-small market share guy’ – May 03, 2005
Microsoft’s Bill Gates is once again playing catch-up to Apple’s Steve Jobs – April 16, 2005
Experts say Bill Gates’ doodles show he’s ‘stressed and tense, not a natural leader’ (with image) – January 31, 2005
Apple Computer will own the living room, not Microsoft – January 10, 2005
Even Bill Gates can’t avoid Windows malware; Mac users surf the Web freely – October 03, 2004
Bill Gates’ sarcasm regarding Apple iPod: ‘Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that’ – September 07, 2004