Bill Gates Speaks Out 571
neoform writes "The Seattle PI is running an interesting interview with Bill Gates." In the article Gates comments on Vista, Google, and a few other pertinent topics. In an amusing bit of related news, an anonymous reader let us know that CNET is also running an interview with Gates. In the CNET interview Gates gives a very interesting response to one of the interview questions. "CNET: So that would be the philosophical difference between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point? Gates: Well, we don't know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan and we disagree with that."
Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
From context he's probably not referring to "Don't be evil" -- but seriously, who can turn down a sound bite (sound byte?) like that?
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
======
Gates: Software in general, whether it was from Microsoft or somebody else, was not set up for an environment where all the computers were connected together. So it's not like there was some software that had this security capability and our software did not.
======
Haw!
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
That can't even be blamed on ignorance, because he knows better. That is genuine, straight up, in your face and looking you in the eye FUD. Maybe they need that on the boxes of Vista when it comes out:
Windows Vista: The ultimate software for computers that are not connected.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
hawk
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:4, Insightful)
Software might have been designed for computers to be interconnected, but in general it wasn't designed very well. You had all this software that was insecure by design, the same thing "we" (slashdotters, unix geeks, whatever) tend to give Microsoft a lot of trouble for. But let's face it, BIND, sendmail, and a lot of other packages were never really designed with security as the primary priority, and if you're allowing connections from anyone anywhere, that has to be the very first thing on your mind. Most common legacy software's security aspects are a retrofit and as such has turned out to be pretty ineffectual.
I'm no Microsoftie, but what he said is pretty true. Most software, even today, is really not secure. Most software is not really designed for, say, collaboration. And almost no operating system is really designed for networking from the ground up. There is a very clear delineation between local and remote resources and what you are allowed to do with them. Granted, that makes sense from the standpoint that how you have to handle those resources is necessarily different, but it doesn't have to be so different to the user. If everything were like CORBA (or DCOM, or whatever) and we had some sort of strong security that functioned at both the local and remote level, and all applications used "safe" libraries for things like string handling, and so on and so forth, then perhaps this wouldn't be so true.
In Unix, you have to go through some rigamarole to have (for example) a named pipe that goes somewhere on another computer. So I wouldn't say that Unix is designed for computers to be connected today. Some Unix software is, yes, and TCP/IP comes with the OS, but without third party software (like netcat) networking is still the thing in Unix that puts the lie to the concept that everything is a file.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
No software was setup for all the computers to be connected together? I guess he never heard of Unix.
The internet would not have exploded into popular worldwide culture were it not for Windows' widespread adoption into the business world.
That made computer familiarity fairly common amongst non-nerds and brought down the price to "reasonable" levels for non-enthusiasts and opened up the internet for many more people.
I really wanted an Apple ][ when I was a teenager but the cost was way too high.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Informative)
There were retail boxed versions to run on the IBM PC also, but my Altos box was the real stuff.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
The mainstream Internet is 10 years old. Nobody should know this better than Microsoft because it caught them completely by surprise and yet it made Windows 95 a huge success. And here we are people are still being told not to open email attachments because the Microsoft "operating system" can't handle it. It's like a crank call making your phone explode in your hands.
When you compare what little Microsoft has built since 1995 to what Appl
Re:The art of The Big Lie. (Score:3, Informative)
Old Unix ran RSH by default. It ran NFS (look ma, no passwords!), it ran sendmail which came with a rootshell feature by design. Every single protocol sent passwords in cleartext (even WFW and Novell attempted some crypto). Old Unix certainly was not at all designed for untrusted networks.
The WinNT idea of authenticated RPC was a gazillion time better than what Unix was offering -- if your network was closed. And if you're talking about buff
Re:The art of The Big Lie. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats nice.
I ran a network of almost 50 multi-user Xenix systems hooked together with OpenNET, supporting 500 users, sharing the network with and talking to VAXes running DECNET and VMSNET and DOS PCs running Microsoft Lan Manager. That's Microsoft Xenix, Copyright 1982-1984, networked together over Ethernet running multiple network protocols. It had a better networked file system than NFS that gave
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3)
I'm looking for a reductio ad absurdum in that sentence, but the implication doesn't seem absurd at all, somehow.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kinda like talking with any politician, since M$ft wants to compete with Google they have to disagree at some level, even if they're trying to do the same things. It's like asking Ted Kennedy what he thinks about Bush's plan for, whatever, helping little children. Whatever the Bush plan is, Ted's gotta disagree with it, that's how the game is played.
That is, even if Gates secretely admired google's plan and slogan and is competing out of jealousy and fear of losing market and customer brand name recognition, he must try to publically discredit google somehow. Even if he thinks they're doing all the right things, he has to discredit it somehow, they're taking people's freedom away, etc. Unfortunately, when the PC Pope speaks, too many listen.
Guess Bill's part of the antidisenplatformization movement.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/corporate/ [google.com]
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Verbal gymnastics to compare well vs google (Score:4, Insightful)
Billgatus of Borg:
In google's own words:
(my emphasis added)
Note how Billgatus of Borg conveniently omits the part about making it universally accessible, as if to avoid an embarrassing contrast between Google's track record and the constant roadblocks his own company puts up.
While Google was building its business with open standards and on the same level playing field that other search engines could use, MSFT was exploiting the closed nature of its Word format against its competitors. While Google was busy adding support for a wide variety of browsers, MSFT was breaking HTML standards in the hopes that only IE would remain standing. He had to leave that little detail out, otherwise it would dredge up memories of how MSFT became a convicted monopolist, and that would clash with the sparkling Mr. Clean image he was trying to project.
And useful? I certainly find it more useful if searches return what I'm searching for instead of just ads. If MSFT manages to kill Google, I would expect search results to degenerate back to the highest bidder model of ads mixed into the search results. Google has done a much better job of managing their PR with this, steering clear of hotmail-like flashing ads and pagerank gambits and maintaining some semblance of believability. And, they've done it without pulling their hair (or toupees) out, or throwing chairs or lodging the sort of epithets one would expect from a knuckle-dragging world wrestling federation circus act. It's a contrast that had to be swept under the carpet.
So, how does The Collective answer to Google's mission statement? (voice=polyphonic Borg collective + squeaky Billgatus)
(and I would sardonically add) ...in a EULA-bound fashion, so that we can revise the agreement at any time to, in effect, appropriate the intellectual property rights to ourselves, without
having to spend a cent storing it. It shall all be
assimilated. Eventually people will have to buy our systems just to
access that information and Google will find itself locked out by our
DRM. Resistance is futile. (/sardonicity)
Also, what's this talk about "giving" tools to people? My, how generous that sounds. Does he mean like another toolbar? Gee, thanks. Or perhaps he means a tool in the sense of a talking paperclip? Or maybe a 3-D flipping crowbar to open up those DRM files long enough to read their EULAs? Or how about a free spyware remover that doesn't remove the #1 brand of spyware, which has a EULA claiming it is illegal to try to remove it. Hmmm. Everyone bow to the unbounded generosity?
One thing's for sure, Google's API has gotten onto his radar, so I'm guessing they may also try to beam down another shipment of EULA-laden developer tools in the hopes they can cut Google off at the mindshare pass. They are trying to kill Google, but for the moment it looks like they will have to brainwa^Wtrain a lot more nine-year-olds. Anyone who knew what was going on a scant few years ago and strains long enough to remember it would have to conclude that this is just another whitewash.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
Teach a man how to index fish and he doesn't need to keep using your software/service...
Or something like that...
It sounded better in my head.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Informative)
In the past, Microsoft has been able to use its money, clout and luck to gain and grow its market share. Now suddenly it is face with a company which has, for all intents and purposes (for better and/or for worse) become as synonomous with online searching as Coke is to soda pop and Kleenex is to tissues. It doesn't have the direct resources to take Google on. Its own attempts to replicate Google simply haven't drawn in the crowds, and its luck really has failed it. Ballmer can throw chairs around all he wants, but Microsoft has been out-Microsofted by another company, and it must scare the hell out of Redmond because they know only too well that its not being first on the bandwagon that counts, its being the guy that is seen as the bandwagon that does, because, really, Google is no more an innovator that Microsoft is. It just got lucky, latched on to an existing idea and managed through some good marketing techniques to drive it to the front of the pack.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to disagree with you here. Google was driven to the front of the pack through word of mouth. It was/is a damn fine search engine. How many Google commercials, advertisements do you see? Advertising for gmail for instance was done purely by word of mouth by allowing it through invites only.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is the anti-MS.
They do the opposite. They market via word of mouth, and by having solid, simple, well-designed products. At google, the baseline is elegant, practical, high-performance engineering. If a product isn't *really* good, it never leaves the lab. If a product isn't *near-perfect*, it never leaves beta. Contrast that with MS. Most often, version 1.0 and 2.0 of an MS product is terrible, or even non-functioning. I'm not taking about beta versions, or lab versions; I'm taking about the crap they sell to people. Even these 1.0 versions, however, are introduced with all kinds of pomp and circumstance.
Enter Google. When was the last time you 'bought' a Google product without *knowing* that it was awesome? The products that they do 'sell' (ads, google earth, and google appliances) they sell unobtrusively, and I've never met someone who purchased one that didn't already *know* that the product was have extremely high quality. They do most of their development in-house, and they pursue paths of research almost as radical as the MIT media lab, but with a healthy dose of practicality.
The search engine was not innovative.
A clear, concise search engine, using page rank, a *very new* way of relating millions of search results WAS innovative. They continue this trend even now, its just not as well publicized, because they have to keep up with the Search Engine Optimization firms.
Maps and driving directions are NOT innovative.
Clear, easy to use, visually attractive maps, with a natural language interface, a well-documented API, an excellent ties to the aforementioned search engine?
That's innovative.
Not all innovation is flashy user interfaces and silicon gadgets. There is such a thing as innovative database design, and brilliant code.
Google is not out-Microsofting anyone. Microsoft's business strategy is well-known: Entering an existing market, form an alliance with the 2nd strongest player, gut that players efforts with your own product, and outspend the top player on marketing dollars. That's it.
I've *never* seen an intrusive ad for Google. I've *never* heard of Google screwing another business.
I've *never* heard of Google participating in dishonest negotiation.
While fanboys may choose to deny it, MS's tendancy towards these underhanded tactics is well-documented, both in terms of court cases (where they tend to PAY the settlement for being guilty, and move on (Novell (DR-DOS), Stacker, etc. .
Google's had a bit of luck, but they've also put a lot of hardwork and intelligence into their business.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has built its empire on marketing, dollars, manipulation, and outright fraud. They've even been found guilty, and forced to pay settlements; but to MS, that's the cost of doing business.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
I pray to God every night that this does not become a widespread buzzword.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory Simpson's references:
Platformization is a perfectly cromulent word.
It sounds from the article as if Gates is attempting to claim that Microsoft will embiggen users.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Interesting)
Question is, after you let me organize it all, will you allow me to access it and how much will it cost?
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
You say Do No Evil, I say I disagree with that. . .
No, wait, I meant. .
KFG
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm going to assume this is a mistranscription or a bad editor; otherwise, this is the single greatest thing to come out of Bill Gates' mouth, ever.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Informative)
More importantly a search for "google slogan" on MSN search [msn.com] turns up mostly results with "Don't be evil" - in fact that's pretty much all the results on the first page say. Of course this is third parties usually talking about "Google's unofficial slogan", but the point is, in terms of popular perception "Don't be evil" is Google's slogan, regardless of what their official slogan actually is.
Jedidiah.
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:4, Informative)
It's just a misleading summary. This one is still champion:
Other gems, from the same interview: [cantrip.org]
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
Gates: Slashdot runs a lot of duplicate stories.
Seriously, RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seriously, RTFA (Score:3)
"(Google has) this slogan that they are going to organize the world's information. Our slogan is that we are going to give people tools to let them organize the world's information."
Well, that isn't Google's 'slogan'. It's a badly done rephrasing of Google's mission statement. Surprising that Bill Gates got that wrong; you'd think he'd still bone up on that kind of thing before an interview, the way he used to before he became such a big shot. But anyway:
What earthly good is it to me if MS is going to
Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the slogan difference that Bill Gates was referring to. Still, a hilarious way to sum things up in the interview. "We disagree with the other company's slogan." Genius business insight there, buddy.
It's like people who's entire political philosophies are capable of being summed up by bumper stickers. You ju
Healthy Competition (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:3, Insightful)
How else do you explain the sudden amount of creativity and motivation that Microsoft is having with its interface?
Microsoft and the Windows folks are going to act all high and mighty that their OS now has these cool features, but they will not realize what is driving it. Competition.
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)
You cant buy an open source project (at least not to stop it), and Apple is going to do its own thing regardless of MS (this is how it has always been).
MS bought Visio and plenty of other apps. I if an open source project created an office productivity application, would MS suddenly have their own version out soon?
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention AOL (which consistently beat MSN throughout the dial-up era)*, Palm (held off Microsoft for several years in the PDA market), Nokia (fending off Smartphone via Symbian), TiVo (mopped the floor with UltimateTV - leading to Windows Media Center improved annually), Adobe's PDF format, Sun's Java, and Sony (Playstation2). And Google thrashing Microsoft in search.
While Apple's Mac OS X is forcing improvements with Windows, its in the other media areas that Apple is thrashing Microsoft interests consistently. The cablecos and satellite companies have settled on Apple supported H.264 as the HD codec of choice over Windows Media. The Windows Media codec may be eliminated from the Blu-Ray format before its market debut, and as it stands, H.264 is also supported with the HD-DVD format. The Microsoft supported DVD+R spec did not trump the Apple backed DVD-R format and now combo drives are the norm. And Apple's iPod/iTunes support of Dolby's AAC audio codec has seriously frakked up Microsoft's WMA format dominating the MP3 player market.
If Corporate America ever is successfully persuaded to switch to Linux or OS X and open source application suite software, Microsoft will be toast...and I don't mean that application by Roxio either.
*Forgot to mention how AOL's AIM (and AIM supporters like iChat) is still more popular than MSN Messenger.
I realize it! (Score:5, Informative)
When i started at MS, we were getting our lunch eaten in security/reliability issues compared to linux.. (which frnakly sucks at security and reliabilty compared to some other UNIX variants) We had customers tell us "you get your sh@#$ straight or we're jumping ship". They had heard, experienced, or both, that they could get better uptime and fewer successful attacks from other platforms.
That's what we needed - the execs heard that we had a competitive threat, so there was executive support to let the really brilliant guys push through huge expensive work on reliability, correctness, security, maintainability, etc. In the past, enough customers were willing to pay for something like Win95 that we only had to make something as good as Win95 (which i never used, btw, as i had given up PC's for Solaris/SPARC by that time..)
Today, nothing can leave Microsoft without the "security gurus" giving their stamp of approval. (i.e. the guys like Michael Howard). There's a formalized process, a list of stuff to check for, all threat models are reveiwed, we have a bunch of internal tools that look for known-uglies in code bases..
None of this existed 5 years ago and today it's mandatory for all shipping products.
Obviously there's more work to do on security and reliability, but today we have the corporate willpower to dump a lot of investment at these problems, and the results are encouraging - Server 2003 has very few issued critical udpates compared to past MS products, and even compared to some distributinos of linux.
The other thing we're finding is that for lots of things, F/OSS people can clone our stuff (UI, feature set) in less time than we can design, write, test, and ship it. Outlook's 11th version is what's out in the market place right now, but something like Evolution (which let's be honest, is about as blatant an outlook clone as you can make without the underlying technologies _also_ being Microsoft stuff) is only a few years old and is functional for a good number of scenarios.
Freeware clones/reimplementations benefit from the UI, the feature set, the "flow", the architecture, and most importantly, the MISTAKES that we've made, so that F/OSS teams can deliver a reasonably functional app that works reasonably well in a very short amount of time.
We definitely know about Eclipse and what it does. People on the inside ask "why would i use VS instead of Eclipse?" and its up to us to make sure there's a good answer.
So yes, i think most microsoft employees understand and even appreciate that competition makes us work better, and that alot of that competition today is Apple, F/OSS, and Google.
Re:I realize it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad the Microsoft execs disagree with that.
Re:I realize it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I realize it! (Score:3, Interesting)
A secure computing environment. That is, not just secure applications,
we compile all code now with
closed ports
The firewall is on by default in XP SP2. This caused a lot of people to be unhappy, but customers (and people like yourself, if you dont h
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
More accurately, they want to continue to be on top and also to be in control. They have money, in fact so much money that they often don't know what to do with it. Like the 30 billion in cash that they had last year and were trying to figure out what to do with.
Competition doesn't make money. Competition drives down profit margins and increases the amount of work required for success.
Or, in MS's case, real competition (such as the threat posed from Linux and OS X) gives them a slap in the face and makes them realize that its sink or swim time again. If they don't get their shit together, they are going to go on the steady slope down to the bottom of the lake.
Conversely, operating a monopoly allows you to slap premium prices on shoddy products and rake in the cash, as long as you are adept at keeping the government off your back.
Which is exactly why people should think before giving in to a shiny new feature. In ANY product. You may be helping yourself in the short run, but in the long run taking the easy way out will lead to difficulties 3, 5, 10 and 20 years from now.
Is it any coincidence that Microsoft is releasing this shiny new version of Office and also considering the subscription based pricing? I don't think so. They know exactly what they are doing.
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
No, money is good, but growth potential is everything. valuation is based on potential. They have to grow. they can't stop changing. if they do, they become a commodity. they might as well sell electricity or water. they fear that software may cease to be a growth industry. that's why everything has to look shiny and new and improved all the time. that's why they fear open source. it's not the money. They do want cool features.
To Clarify Gates's Quote (Score:5, Informative)
The slashdot blurb wants to you to think that gates is disagreeing with the do no evil slogan. Silly decepticons running slashdot.
Re:To Clarify Gates's Quote (Score:2)
Re:To Clarify Gates's Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Mission vs. Slogan (Score:5, Informative)
"Don't be evil" is one of 10 statements of their philosophy [google.com]. I can't find anywhere that Google itself states that it is their slogan. But I guess you can have a lot of slogans.
It makes since, his PR is bad. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It makes since, his PR is bad. (Score:4, Interesting)
hint: most geeks couldn't have afforded DECs.
Re:It makes since, his PR is bad. (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux started as a minix-like operating system and minix was created to teach students the creation of unix style operating systems.
Out of context (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Out of context (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but the Slashdot editors know that the current presentation will generate more site traffic than showing the quote in context. Every bit as sleazy as any politician or used car salesman out there.
He's still in denial... (Score:5, Insightful)
What can one say to something so far off the mark?
Re:He's still in denial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh, what a poor way to cover up Windows' inadequacies when it comes to networking.
Nice to see people aren't buying this crap.
Google's Slogan? (Score:5, Funny)
They were so cocky about it, they even put it on a button...those bastard!!
Proof! (Score:3, Funny)
Ha! I knew it! This whole time we were right about Microsoft's plan! Their only goal is to copy! (or buy, whichever is more economical)
Total World Domination (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Total World Domination (Score:3, Insightful)
The same as Linux's; but yet that's fine when we're talking about Linux? I call shennigans.
Is anyone taken back by this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Favorite Quote (Score:2)
Re:Favorite Quote (Score:3, Interesting)
In the context of *all* software, that is probably true originally. Early big iron certainly did not like to talk to other machines. It was a bit of a hack, if I recall correctly. Early micros were totally independant.
On the other hand, by the time MS was on the scene (the CPM days) there were quite a few machines written from the ground up to talk to each other. In w
speech and video recognition? (Score:5, Funny)
Clippy AV: "Hello User/Bear/Shrub, I see you've brought a Hammer/Salmon/Exhaust Manifold. Would you like me to assist you with it?
[No] [Cancel]
Where's Napoleon?! (Score:5, Funny)
What in heaven's name is he talking about? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course software was set up for networked communication. Most UNIX (including *BSD and Linux) systems since the late 1970s have been network-aware in some form or another. And they have experienced nowhere near the problems that Microsoft's software has.
Now it's intriguing that he's suggesting that it might be necessary to "only listen to certain other systems". That sounds an awful lot like a DRM-style situation for the Internet. Imagine not being able to connect to an FTP server running on Windows, only because you're using Mozilla or the FreeBSD ftp client, and such non-Microsoft products are deemed "insecure".
Re:What in heaven's name is he talking about? (Score:5, Informative)
What in heaven's name is he talking about?
[SNIP]
Of course software was set up for networked communication. Most UNIX (including *BSD and Linux) systems since the late 1970s have been network-aware in some form or another. And they have experienced nowhere near the problems that Microsoft's software has.
I assume this is a mistake, surely you meant to say "and experienced a huge number of security problems because UNIX was never designed with security as a prime consideration, and neither was the internet".
For example, off the top of my head, there was the Morris Worm, remote root exploits in hundreds of versions of sendmail, similar problems with DNS. Default email relaying in SunOS and Solaris for many years. The list is endless.
Now, it's true, a lot of progress has been made and lots of unix systems can be fairly secure now in skilled hands - a far more modest claim than yours.
"I don't think anybody anticipated..." (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what was IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture)? Chopped liver?
That's right up there with "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
Richer? (Score:5, Funny)
He meant to say as Office gor Bloated and I got Richer...
what do we have to hear now? (Score:5, Insightful)
But What Are You For, Google? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But What Are You For, Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations have a legal mandate to make money. It doesn't mean they can do no good, just that they are opposed to good deeds if they result in the haemorraging of cash.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the work Google do (at the moment at least). Just don't expect them to honestly set out inspirational visions for their future.
In Summary: (Score:3, Interesting)
Google slogan: "Do no evil".
Microsoft slogan: "Resistance is Futile".
Re:In Summary: (Score:3, Insightful)
Google slogan: "Do no evil".
Microsoft slogan: "The Devil You Know".
Gratuitous Celebrity CEO Theoretical (Score:5, Funny)
I'm fairly certain Paige would thoroughly pound Gates into the floor; but Ballmer is really freakin' scary. That one I'm not so sure of. I'm picturing Ballmer being able to take out both Paige and Brin at the same time.
Then again, Ballmer having Gates as a tag team partner would actually be a hinderence, so I'm thinking Paige and Brin would just barely be able to People's Elbow his ass into submission.
In other words (Score:5, Funny)
char* slogan = "Don't Be Evil";
char* corporateSlogan;
if(corporateID == GOOGLE)
corporateSlogan = slogan;
else if(corporateID == MICROSOFT)
corporateSlogan = &(slogan[6]);
Re:In other words (Score:4, Funny)
char* slogan = "Don't Be Evil";
char* corporateSlogan;
if (corporateID == GOOGLE)
corporateSlogan = slogan;
if (corporateID == MICROSOFT)
corporateSlogan = &(slogan[23]);
The Open Source Hair Salon (Score:5, Insightful)
"There are some zealots that think there should be no software jobs, that we should all, like, cut hair during the day and write code at night."
Either he just doesn't get it, or he's refusing to acknowledge what open source software (and the GPL) really is. Software development *is* services... It's professional services. Work you get paid for. Work you pay someone else to do. Open source spurs innovation because it both allows you to stand on someone elses shoulders and forces you to make your shoulders available to someone else.
That OSS developers cut hair for a living to support their "habit" is ridiculous. Would you let a slashdot member cut *your* hair?
That's his point. (Score:3, Interesting)
-everphilski-
Mission statement != slogan (Score:4, Interesting)
Our Mission [microsoft.com]
At Microsoft, we work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this mission and the values that make it possible.
I'm not so sure what their slogan is: You will be assimilated?
In any case, it's clear that the only thing most of us thought as a slogan for google was Do no eviiil. The bit about organizing the world's information and making it useful- well, that's their mission statment.
With a CEO that throws chairs around and a tech with both-feet in mouth disease, I'd be selling M$ shares right now.
Just an attempt to pump up the stock (Score:3, Interesting)
Bill Gates puts the psycho Ballmer in charge. Ballmer would be great if his only job was to crush little, cash-strapped companies run by twitchy VCs.
But when MSFT has to compete with a real company, that has real money, and can hurt them, the psycho stuff doesn't work -- chair throwing. It makes them look bad in the press, like they are desperate.
In earlier times, Ballmer could throw the chair, say "fuck" and "pussy" all he wanted, and nobody would really talk about it, because they'd be thinking --- jeez, if I blab about this, who knows if it will bite me in the ass.
Now that the emperor has no clothes, that shit doesn't work.
So then they have to trot out the Nice Bill to give interviews that dispute the "we are evil" tag, and try to make things look like it will all be OK.
Don't just be evil... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't just be evil... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't WANT to organize the world's information.. (Score:3, Funny)
It's too much work, even with better tools, I've got things I'd rather be doing. While I may not trust Google to do it the way I'd like, what they end up with will be more than I have interest in doing by myself...
And just what does Gates mean by "tools to organize"-- I doubt he means web-spider programs that will generate your own search engine database-- would it not likely mean that the tools would access a Microsoft database (that they apparently, haven't even bothered to organize) and you could then organize your links into Microsoft's data? Yeah, that sounds better than what Google's doing :-)...
gates, google (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps their biggest mistake was pissing Microsoft off so much with the Kai Fu Lee deal. In trying to overachieve on too many goals, the last thing they need is Redmond as an enemy. The last thing they need is Ballmer and Gates fighting them every inch of the way.
The amount of clout, IP, and coding prowess that MS wields should not be trivialized. The way to kill MS is to silently make them irrelevant and avoiding a war. Google just blew that strategy.
And the kicker is that billg's graciousness in the interview towards google actually tells me that MS has already won even before the coming battle starts.
always good for a laugh (Score:3, Informative)
Bill's ability to completely and utterly ignore any portion of reality which doesn't promote The Microsoft Way(TM) is truly extraordinary. From the way he talks I've come to think he actually believes the shit that spews forth from his pie-hole, in a very Howard Hughes-ian sort of way.
Max
Gates Drunk? (Score:5, Insightful)
At any point in our history, we've had competitors who were better at doing something. Novell was the best at file servers. Lotus was the best at spreadsheets. WordPerfect was the best at word processing.
So its not just me. Even the Founder knows they suck (comparatively)
Right now, because of the breadth of what we do, we have that in many areas. Nokia is way ahead of us in phones; we're closing the gap. Sony is ahead of us in video games. We're just on the verge of something (the Xbox 360) that will help us close the gap there. In Web search, Google is the far-away leader. Big honeymoon for them. Even if they do "me, too" type stuff, people think, "wow." nd Apple in music has done a fantastic job.
We interupt this Bill Gates Honesty Break to bring you the following.
In those areas where somebody else has done well, that's great. We'll match what they do, we'll bring new things to it, do it better and integrate it in with other things. And so it's very healthy for the consumer. We see that in search, we see it in music. It's not new at all that that's out there
Translation: We make inferior products, bundle them, make exclusive deals, failing all else we buy the competitor and bury/integrate their product.
Uhhh, Mr. Gates? Unix? Multics, fer chrissake? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, he's right there ... if this quote was from like 1962. Before there was teh webbs, before there was teh netz, before there was teh Microsoft, before there was teh UNIX, there was an operating system that was designed from the ground-up to incorporate advanced/enhanced security features (relative to the times), and it was called Multics.
Unix has been established as a legitimate operating system since the 1970's. I guess you could say the "C" version would be the birthday of modern Unix, so we're talking 1973. Was Bill Gates out of grammar school yet at this point?
Native TCP/IP support was built into the kernel in the early 1980's, a few years. http://www.computerhope.com/unix/xenix.htm [http]">Micros oft itself created a Unix port, and it probably doesn't surprise any of us that SCO ended up with it. The similarities between how SCO and MS behave in the industry and market aren't totally coincidence.
So, Bill, you HAD a network-ready and relatively secure operating system 25 goddam years ago. And you're saying that it's just now that anybody cares about networking, communications, or information security? Security has been a concern since the fucking 1960's, and your own friggen company had a Unix build.
Jesus H. I normally don't jump on the bash-Microsoft bandwagon and often grapple with some of YOU Slashdot turds for doing so, but if this isn't a bunch of merry sunshine blown up the collective asses of industry journalism, I don't know what is.
Comments from the peanut gallery (Score:3, Interesting)
And still are, I'd wager, even the defunct ones...
Software in general, whether it was from Microsoft or somebody else, was not set up for an environment where all the computers were connected together. So it's not like there was some software that had this security capability and our software did not.
Solaris, 'Network is the computer', most other *nix's, Linux...
Wrong damn slogan. (Score:4, Informative)
No it wasn't the "do no evil" slogan. I'm guessing most of the post in this thread will be made on this comment the submitter had made, who should pull his head out of his ass and stop tryin to flamebait.
The Google slogan changed. (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, that's all well and good but... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's sort of a bizzare reversal of the phrase: every time Bill lies, a cash register goes "ring!"
Re:hmmm, how should we interpret his statement? (Score:4, Informative)
"The remainder of the exercise is left to the readers."
Sorry that you went to all that trouble. Looks like Slashdot and its famous misleading summaries has punked several hapless readers yet again. The summary was written to imply that he was referring to the "do no evil" slogan and you and a few others fell for it.
If you have a moment, read the article and you'll see that Bill references the actual slogan earlier in the interview.
Re:hmmm, how should we interpret his statement? (Score:2)
Presumably by "readers", you don't mean in the sense of R's of TFA, unless you're leaving it to them to realize that the "slogan: in question has nothing to do with evil.
Anyhoo, regarding the new Office interface: I hadn't heard of this, but the first screenshots [winsupersite.com] I eviled, errr, Googled look a lot like the deafault GNOME taskbar. I suppose that's a tribute to GNOME, but I personally find that UI utterly frustrating and counterproductive.
Get your eyes checked! (Score:4, Funny)
Bill should take his ravishing (ahem) wife and go off and do good deeds...
Google image of Melinda Gates [google.com]
Damn you for even making me curious!