Memo to Bill Gates: Don’t argue about the Mac

by Chris Seibold Feb 02, 2007

In a Newsweek interview Bill Gates is asked about the Mac by Steven Levy. Perhaps it was the fact that Stephen Levy wrote a book about the Mac or maybe Bill is just sick of hearing about how great Apple is but his answers reveal far too much Mac jealousy, heck it makes the Mac seem like actual competition.

There is no point in belaboring Bill Gates’ words (Daring Fireball has you covered) but a discussion about what Bill said is in order. The first rule when operating from a superior market position is not to mention the competitor. You don’t see Toyota running ads comparing Toyotas to Mazdas and the reason is that by talking about a competitor it means you see them as a threat and you thus legitimize the competing product. Of course Bill was directly asked about the Mac and the similarities of OSX and Vista so saying nothing was not an option. Here’s what you can say:

“Sure, there are some similarities between Vista and OS X, a system wide search is an obvious need. It isn’t a big deal that OS X had it first, implementing new features is much easier with a limited operating system and Apple did a great job. Because Windows powers such a huge variety of things, from enterprise to home entertainment we have many more variables to consider when putting a new product out there. Frankly, ours has to work.”

The above gives Apples a few props and simultaneously makes OS X look like a product that is only for those with limited needs. Put differently, instead of being petty Bill should reinforce the stereotype of OS X.

Bill gets irked again when asked about the Surgery get a Mac ad, calling the ad FUD. Bill let me help:

“Well upgrades are always a cause for concern, everyone fears the unkown but we like to give consumers choices. You can be perfectly productive without upgrading but the experience of Vista is so much better you’ll want to upgrade! Don’t get me wrong, for the truly technophobic out there, people who don’t want to play games or fear more than a handful of choices in software and hardware the Mac is a wonderful choice. Windows is the OS for the rest of us.”

It is easy stuff Mr. Gates, you can sound magnanimous while digging the knife ever deeper. Though when talking about the iPod you do want to pull out the knife and stab, stab, stab. Different market positions demand different tactics.

Comments

  • Ahh Microsoft when will you stop taking potshots at Apple.

    Like the time they delivered a virus with the Zune, and then commented how “As you might imagine, we are upset at OSX for not being more hardy against such viruses”

    That was terrible of them, wasn’t it.

    simo66 had this to say on Feb 02, 2007 Posts: 78
  • Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. -Bill @Newsweek

    If he is right then I should be going out and buy the latest Symantec Antivirus or, wait a minute, there is no need for a Mac antivirus. If there is, its a sham!

    Why? Darwin (OSX’s foundation) is freely available for anyone to decipher. With all those criticizing eyeballs why haven’t a massive threat come out? Can’t we then deduce that Darwin/BSD is a very secure layer that’s been time tested and “hole free”? Just a thought.

    If there were OSX malware it would have to target the upper layers (applications) such as quicktime and core services. Still, the effect would be minimal since their privileges won’t allow them to bring down the whole system. They have no access to the hardware without kernel permissions.

    I have two G5 towers running Tiger (desktop and server), running everyday for the past year or so and have no viral problems. Hmmm…

    I switch on my XP laptop and voila! worms, spies, and viruses prop up like those things were alive. And that’s for having Zone Alarm suite and AdAware full on along with Symantec Antivirus.

    Tsk! tsk! tsk! Bill, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Just so your highly paid hackers, err, scientists can hack a Mac in the lab doesn’t mean it can be replicated in the wild that easily.

    Robomac had this to say on Feb 02, 2007 Posts: 846
  • It is easy stuff Mr. Gates, you can sound magnanimous while digging the knife ever deeper.

    I don’t think “magnanimous” is in Bill’s vocabulary.  I agree with your points, although they are perhaps a bit TOO conciliatory to be remotely realistic.

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Feb 03, 2007 Posts: 2220
  • Like the time they delivered a virus with the Zune, and then commented how “As you might imagine, we are upset at OSX for not being more hardy against such viruses”

    That was terrible of them, wasn’t it.

    Heh.  wink

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Feb 03, 2007 Posts: 2220
  • How often do you get to condescend to Bill Gates and be right on the money! Great angle.

    SwitchBlog had this to say on Feb 04, 2007 Posts: 1
  • I like how Bill used the word “obvious” in describing the systemwide search feature he stole from OS X. Calling a competitors innovation “obvious” still doesn’t alter the fact that you stole it, Bill.

    Quadraman had this to say on Aug 04, 2007 Posts: 2
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