Gates and Jobs to share the stage

Rob writes: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Apple chief Steve Jobs will make a rare joint appearance to wax lyrical about their visions of future technologies at the D: All Things Digital conference, which is to be held in Carlsbad, California. Expect no miraculous joint announcement from the event, which will be a 75-minute joint interview. "We expect to use the occasion to get them to reflect on both the past — how we got here — and the future," said Mossberg, who is personal tech columnist at the Wall Street Journal, in an email. He declined to give any color about the questions he and Swisher are preparing, or any additional information. Most likely, Gates and Jobs will use the occasion to do some friendly sparring on their polar-opposite philosophies on personal computing. Jobs may bang on about the benefits of a software-hardware approach, while Gates may rattle off the joys of partnering with hardware partners.