Bill Gates' forecasts from 1999

[hubird]

Although some think Steve Jobs was just the perfect sales man, most think he was a real visionair.

A Dutch paper article resuming one's blog shows that Bill Gates holds his own with Jobs, as his forecasts from 1999 turned out to be 'eerily prescient':
http://www.nrcq.nl/2015/04/30/bill-gate ... ij-hij-zat

What if both geniuses had worked together...?

[garyb]

what if?

please, they did. Bill even bailed out Apple when Apple was insolvent.

[hubird]

yeah, he still does regret that

Here's a more balanced interpretation of the facts, coming from http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-to-inves ... 02143.html :

Observers say the deal, while a shot in the arm for Apple, also may help Microsoft by keeping antitrust charges at bay.
Apple represents one of the only alternatives to Microsoft's Windows and the Microsoft-Intel hegemony.
Microsoft chief financial officer Greg Maffei discounted such talk. "Frankly, we weren't driven as much by those kind of considerations as looking at it as a platform for our applications," he said.

Dwight Davis, editor of the Windows Watcher newsletter, said the real benefit for Microsoft is that it gains an ally against Sun Microsystems' Java programming language.
"Apple has not been the bogeyman to Microsoft in a long time. They are more than happy to have a legitimate threat to their business, and it's called Java."

For Apple's part, Anderson said, "Microsoft Office is very important to our Mac customer base, and this deal provides for continued availability of the outstanding Microsoft Office product on the Mac platform."
More than 8 million customers use Microsoft Office for the Macintosh, making it "the single largest revenue Mac application," Maffei said.
"It's a very important application for Apple and its customers, and it's a very important application for Microsoft and its customers. It's a several-hundred-million-dollar item."

Both companies worked together indeed, Apple just had to, at least Office was a must, and MS needed the graphic orientation of the mac.
But that's not the same as sharing ideas and imagination by two visionaries...

There was an incompatibility of characters, it would never have worked out.
It's still an interesting idea to imagine them working together as one brain...

Characters? Cooperation?
Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Z7eal4uXI
The iPad is from 2010, here it's 2007, Part VI, Jobs: 'Isn't it funny, a ship that leaks from the top', when he's again refusing to reveal about future plans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXKv9jc-otc , take a start at 2:59.
If you look at it knowing he was working already on the iPad at the time it's like a movie.

[garyb]

why would Gates regret helping Apple?
when Apple wins, M$ also wins.

[hubird]

sure, like it said
But Apple got wings...

They found each other on expected profit scales, which is legal and logic.

But the love didn't include sharing plans
Here's another fragment from the Gates/Jobs interview, get to 1:20.
Again and agin the interviewers are fishing, but Jobs keeps his lips sealed, except when he enigmatically and slightly muffed speaks about 'post pc devices', think iPad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2aLYBC5onk
'They [the software users] don't wanne have a car with six wheels', aiming at the classic personal computer.


Still good forecasts from Bill, don't you think?...

[garyb]

i think that certain business is such a small world that competition is more of an idea than a reality.

i think the competition is more in the minds of the consumers.

i think that BG knows what the plan is.

i know you love this kind of post.