“Microsoft’s Bill Gates had some words of praise today for Steve Jobs, the CEO of arch-rival Apple,” Alex Crippen reports for CNBC.
Crippen reports, “David Matthews of Columbia Executive Business school had this question for Bill Gates: ‘If you could just comment and tell us what your thoughts are on the job Steve Jobs has done as the CEO of Apple?'”
Gates replied: Well, he’s done a fantastic job. Apple is in a bit of a different business where they make hardware and software together. But when Steve was coming back to Apple, which was actually through an acquisition of NeXT that he ran, Apple was in very tough shape. In fact, most likely it wasn’t going to survive. And he brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that’s made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things. And it’s great to have competitors like that. We write software for Apple, Microsoft does. They compete with Apple. But he, of all the leaders in the industry that I’ve worked with, he showed more inspiration and he saved the company.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There’s nothing untrue in that statement from Gates. The video reminds us of this one:
Direct link via YouTube here.
Before we all set sail on the sea of love, let’s not forget that Bill Gates is a liar currently trying to buy his way into heaven with ill-gotten gains. More on that here.
And let us never forget that just after Apple introduced the original iMacs in various colors Bill Gates proclaimed, “The one thing Apple’s providing now is leadership in colors. It won’t take long for us to catch up with that, I don’t think.”
In a similar vein, Gates has also been quoted as saying, “There’s nothing that the iPod does that I say, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that.'”
As Microsoft’s current product lineup attests, they still haven’t caught up to Apple in personal computers or operating systems and are now far behind in personal media players, digital hub software, and smartphones, too.
[Attribution: AppleInsider. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Maybe Jobs can return the favor someday. Microsoft may need it.
Well said, Bill.
Fred Sanford: “‘Lizbeth, ‘Lizbeth, I’ze comin’ ‘Lizbeth, it’s the big one!”
@An Optimist: Great take!
It’s very interesting to compare Bill Gates’ statement above about Apple and SJ with the statements made about him and MS by many of posters on this site.
I watched this whole interview last night, I highly recommend it.
I like Bill, shame about Ballmer though…
Let’s not forget that Bill Gates kept Apple in business. Bash all you want, but never forget that. Everything from Apple that you enjoy now stems from what Bill did in ’97.
Steve516 writes, I like Bill, shame about Ballmer though…”
Sorry, I can’t be think so well of Bill. He was a seller of snake oil most of his adult life, a bully and a thug against any who would compete against him. And considering the billions his company had to fork out over others’ technology, he could be considered a thief as well.
We used to have a game on Linux called xbill involving a room of myriad computer systems – Mac, Sun, HP, Apollo, et. al. – into which an animated character resembling BG entered, pulled the other OS off and inserted Windows. You had to “kill bill” to stop him. As one progressed, the number of “bills” grew into a swarm. Sorta’ like me as an old UNIX hand fighting the swarm of Windows boxes I ultimately had to support.
@nav01
That’s overstating it just a bit.
Love it.
History repeating…
All the help that Microsoft gave Apple in 1997 is part of an out-of-court settlement for Microsoft ripping off Apple when Microsoft released Windows 95. It’s not some kind of philanthropic deed. 750 million in cash, guarranteed Mac version of MS Office for 5 years, Microsoft bought Apple stock, etc….
I think you’re deluding yourself nav01, in 97 Microsoft decided to make the Macintosh business unit create the Office suite primarily as a test bed. Why not make some money off those rubes still buying that Edsel? As for that $150 mil that Microsoft invested, Apple may have been in a sea of red ink but they still has a $300 mil cash position.Microsoft cleaned up on that crocodile show of faith to the tune of $18 billion. That was all Steve’s stewardship, while Microsoft was busy getting into antitrust trouble.
Bill Gates never did anything to keep Apple in business.
At the time of the ’97 deal with Microsoft, Apple was still in a healthy cash position. The keys to Apple’s long-term viability at that time were stemming quarterly losses by cleaning up the product line (Jobs + Ive), modernizing the inventory and distribution systems (Tim Cook), and developing a sustainable OS strategy (NeXT).
All the Microsoft deal did was help with consumer confidence by ensuring that Office and Internet Explorer would be available for the Mac. The cash transaction that was part of the deal was merely symbolic and had little to do with Apple’s financial viability.
@Nav01
Another clueless Windows user.
From what I can tell, Gates and co. had to buy apple stock because they stole QuickTime player code. At best the money represented Bill’s faith in Apple, so that developers and potential Mac customers didn’t think Apple would go out of business any time soon. btw Microsoft long ago sold their Apple stocks.
Bills greatest gift to humanity was how NOT to run a computer company, i.e., ineptitude, thievery and harassment.
MDN- Safari won’t let me leave a post, yet camino does, what gives? It also doesn’t show the title of the post at the top of the window, in Camino it works however, weird.
The Jimmy Buffet lyric goes-
“I’m glad I’m not a lawyer, a thief, or a banker.”
Bill Gates is the spawn of a lawyer and a banker. (seriously, look it up.)
Well of course Thief Billy Goat the Troll has to express appreciation for Apple, the Source from which Microsoft steals their copying.
M$ is primarily a copying company, after all.
That Steve Jobs learned to accept the Thief M$ always nipping at his heels and move beyond that albatross speaks to what a high-minded and great man Steve Jobs has become.
Someone at CNBC must be having fun flipping the streaming switch on/off as i can barely get through the whole interview without heavy buffering.
Apple in ’97 — while recognizably in deep doo doo — had about $2B in cash [depending on who’s report you read].
As mentioned, there was a HUGE out of court settlement — hmmm, a recurring theme, huh? — the 5 yr guarantee for MS Office; and upwards of $850M for stealing Apple code [actually using QuickTime code line for line]
The $150 MS ‘investment’ was payment to reprint Mac OS 8 boxes and repress the Mac OS 8 CD-ROMs to allow the MS request of defaulting IE instead of Netscape. Loads of disks, et al., in some landfill somewhere.
Finally, someone had MS by the cajones. But, instead of punishing MS, Jobs used them to make Apple stronger. Make the guy that stole from you, be your unpaid cheerleader.
We all enjoy fantasizing that revenge is the best revenge. But, we all know that living well is.
Jobs scares Gates. That’s all Jobs needs emotionally. But, Jobs is a thinker. He’s not emotionally wrapped up in trying to rule the world.
that’s the difference between gates and ballmer
gates has achieved something and is in the same league as god , i mean steve , ok maybe not but ya know
ballmer’s just a 3rd rate big mouthed fax salesman who got lucky
and the state of mucrosuck just shows
nowhere to go … but dowwwwwwwn
Well at least he didn’t attribute Apple’s success to a rounding error.
I secretly use Macs and I have an iPhone and an iPod. Long live Apple!
ahh! peace in our time, nice!
The further from Microsoft Gates gets, the more honest he can be.