Gates not happy with ‘Get a Mac’ ads, ‘Vista/OS X’ digs
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Feb 2, 2007 at 11:56am
In an interview with Newsweek’s Steven Levy, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. Not surprisingly, he discussed Vista (the new version of Windows, but also talked about why John Hodgman (the “PC” in the TV ads) bugs him. Here are some quotes from the interview:
° Regarding the “Get a Mac” commercial: “I’ve never seen it. I don’t think the over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are.”
° On Apple’s attitude of superiority: “I don’t know why [Apple is] acting like it’s superior. I don’t even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you’re really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There’s not even the slightest shred of truth to it.”
° On comments that Vista’s features have already been in Mac OS X for some time: “You can go through and look at who showed any of these things first, if you care about the facts. If you just want to say, ‘Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,’ that’s fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. I mean, it’s fascinating, maybe we shouldn’t have showed so publicly the stuff we were doing, because we knew how long the new security base was going to take us to get done. Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine. So, yes, it took us longer, and they had what we were doing, user interface-wise. Let’s be realistic, who came up with [the] file, edit, view, help [menu bar]? Do you want to go back to the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts came from?”
micha S Says:
How funny . Bill Gates on the defensive and then on some kind of offensive tack. Love it . Just what we need . Two macs and two pc’s - macs overall winners everytime . The other day one pc crashed , you know the beautiful blue microsoft screen - clean and total re-install with zillion updates took over 6 hours Mr Gates . SIX HOURS ! I repeat 6 HOURS . I rest my case .
Posted on February 02, 2007
J. Scott Anderson Says:
You have to love the very typical Gates/Microsoft attitude. My observations:
• As someone in technology since 1976, the words “arrogant” and “Microsoft” have come to mean the same thing. I guess Mr. Gates has never sat through one of his marketing/sales teams presentations to a client.
• Interesting that he asks about honesty and then goes on to say that the security guys are breaking the Mac “every day” with a “total exploit”. Really? Would he care to site a few. I doubt it. He should spend less time with his own marketing team and more time reading Macsimum News. A few facts might slip into is world.
• He doesn’t think that Windows users are not like what is being portrayed. True, but then Mac users are not what the Microsoft marketers and sales people have portrayed either…touché…right back at ‘cha, Mr. Gates.
Posted on February 02, 2007
Jarod Says:
LOL!!! Billy boy is feeling the heat I see.
Tick Tick Tick Tick .... any day now, we’ll hear the final BOOM and MS will finally self destruct. This guy’s a has been with a serious inferiority complex. What a joke...just like all his software.
Posted on February 02, 2007
Iara Says:
The cynicism of this guy is trully remarkable. The guy responsible for hundreds of millions of zombie boxes that are filling your mailbox with spam talks about the glaring vulnerabilities of Mac OS X and then talks about how honesty does not seem to matter in the Apple adds! A trully shameful display of dishonesty.
Posted on February 02, 2007
Moakie Says:
Hilarious! I’d have expected better damage control from M$. Not quite clever since he knows that whining like this will actually get attention from people. Good or bad, he is getting attention now. It is just that there is no way to respect them when, e.g., he *says* that he hasn’t seen the ads for himself. How can he judge them without having viewed them - and, it would seem, that of course he has in order to make such commentary.
He only validates his own points of assumption by actually being ‘that guy.”
Posted on February 02, 2007
CK Dexter Haven Says:
Hysterical.
1. He’s never seen the commercial? How out of touch can this man be? Perhaps it’s unfortunate, but if you don’t watch television, you cannot hope to have a sense of what’s going on in this world. This is akin to George Bush (senior) marvelling at the grocery store scanning device....
2. Apple’s attitude of superiority? It’s called Ad-Ver-Tising. Would you expect them to put forth the notion that they are not the better choice? What are they trying to say? He can’t be that dim, can he? “Honesty?” “Lying person?” Sounds like a Rove disciple.
3. Yes, we can go back and look at who IMPLEMENTED these things first, if we care about ‘the facts.’ The fact is, Windows emulates Mac. Clumsily. PCs are inelegant, inefficient consumer boxes. He’s making a lot of lightly veiled excuses. “Security base?” “Publicly?” Whatever. You either bring it or you do not bring it. He would like us to believe that Apple’s innovations have already been conceived and produced in some hidden microsoft laboratory, but for reasons beyond his control, they couldn’t be released until after the Mac’s versions? That’s like me saying i lost my virginity at 12, to a smokin’ hot babe. Her name? You wouldn’t know her. She’s from Canada.
Wine on, Mr. Gates.
Posted on February 02, 2007
Strange Daze Says:
If I had this guy’s money I think I would have better things to worry/argue about than this stuff. MS will sell more copies of VISTA during February than the entire installed base of Mac OS X. Good Grief, the handheld check out devices Apple uses in it’s retail stores run Windows. If I were Bill Gates I would get more than a little satisfaction from that. Since I don’t have his money, I’ll chalk it up to him worrying about his ‘legacy’ as he is preparing to step away from active involvement at MS.
I’m sure Gates is a smart guy, but he has gotten some fantastic breaks in his business life. IBM made him a sweetheart of a deal for the PC OS, which he bought for a song, then IBM subsidized it’s development and then let him keep it (PC DOS/MS DOS). Apple got ripped off by MS, successfully sues and then settles for chump change and a cross licensing agreement. He violates a litany of anti-trust laws and rules, gets successfully sued and gets a gift from the incoming Bush Administration that lets him off with a slap on the wrist.
It took some ability, a few lucky breaks, some ruthless business practices, a fair amount of stupidity by competitors (including Apple) and an impotent government anti-trust activity to get him where he and his company are today. Knowing all that, if I were Gates I wouldn’t be making so much noise and go quietly away enjoying my billions.
Posted on February 02, 2007
Back Face Says:
If MS really means when they say that they were “first” and that they are “innovative”, why can’t they produce something totally “new”, something no one has done before?
But wait, they have… the MS Toilet.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2007/01/toilet_gets_windows_experience.html
Posted on February 03, 2007
David Feng Says:
Poor Bill… he hasn’t even seen these ads… that’s telling.
Bill: Vista isn’t copying OS X.
Bertrand Serlet (of WWDC 2006 fame): not true… ;-)
Life sure is good!
Posted on February 03, 2007
Stan Schultz Says:
Gates could never be a politician. That interview was on the level of Jim Kerry.
“Proper prior planning prevents poor performance, Mr. Gates.” Whe you know that the USA is standing up and taking notice---and relating to the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads, you should be better prepared for the press.”
Hire me. I’ll let you know where you’re going to get kicked and punched.
Posted on February 03, 2007
RV Says:
In other words, Bill lost his sense of humor along with taste, when he sold his soul to the devil.
Posted on February 05, 2007
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
tundraboy Says:
The Get a Mac ads don’t say Windows users are dullards or klutzes. They do say that metaphorically, Windows computers are dull and klutzy compared to a Mac. Which is pretty accurate.
Posted on February 02, 2007