Bill Gates & Steve Jobs D5 Conference 同台受訪節錄
Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft, Thought on Apr 13th, 2009 繼續閱讀 »
Steve Jobs: …And I think building a company’s really hard, and it requires your greatest persuasive abilities to hire the best people you can and keep them at your company and keep them working, doing the best work of their lives, hopefully. And Bill’s been able to stay with it for all these years. (一開始雙方互相讚對對方，Steve Jobs 特別指出說服力是公司初期招募與留住人才的關鍵。他本身就把 Steve Wozniak 從 HP 的金飯碗中遊說到車庫，一起創辦 Apple Computer。)
Bill Gates: …And his ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal. (Bill Gates 稱讚 Steve Jobs 在在看趨勢與消費者需求這方面的眼光神準。)
Bill Gates: …And we had really bet our future on the Macintosh being successful, and then, hopefully, graphics interfaces in general being successful, but first and foremost, the thing that would popularize that being the Macintosh. (早期 Microsoft 是 Apple Computer 少數合作密切的 application vendors 之一。Microsoft 也把身家賭在 Apple 的麥金塔電腦。)
Steve Jobs: …But the net result of it was, was there were too many people at Apple and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of, for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. And it was clear that you didn’t have to play that game because Apple wasn’t going to beat Microsoft. Apple didn’t have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was because they’d forgotten who Apple was. (Steve Jobs 回憶，直到他1997年回鍋上任以來，Apple 內部仍瀰漫著反Microsoft 情緒，員工腦中裝滿了與 Microsoft 的零和遊戲。但他一走馬上任，第一件事就是告訴大家：Apple 的成功不一定要建立在 Microsoft 的失敗之上。同時也在 1997 Macworld 大會上宣布 Microsoft 將成為 Apple 的 strategic partner。)
Steve Jobs: The art of those commercials (I’m MAC v.s. I’m PC) is not to be mean, but it’s actually for the guys to like each other. Thanks. PC guy is great. Got a big heart.
Bill Gates: His mother loves him.
Steve Jobs: His mother loves him.
Steve Jobs: PC guy’s what makes it all work, actually.
(Steve Jobs 說：是 PC Guy 讓 Mac v.s. PC 系列廣告獲得空前成功，一切都要感謝PC Guy.
)
Steve Jobs: …You know, what’s really interesting is–and we talked about this earlier today–if you look at the reason that the iPod exists and the Apple’s in that marketplace, it’s because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of own the portable music market, invented it and owned it, couldn’t do the appropriate software, couldn’t conceive of and implement the appropriate software. Because an iPod’s really just software. It’s software in the iPod itself, it’s software on the PC or the Mac, and it’s software in the cloud for the store. And it’s in a beautiful box, but it’s software. If you look at what a Mac is, it’s OS X, right? It’s in a beautiful box, but it’s OS X. And if you look at what an iPhone will hopefully be, it’s software.
…And so the big secret about Apple, of course–not-so-big secret maybe–is that Apple views itself as a software company… (Steve Jobs 認為 Apple 的成功來自 software design，iPod 說穿了就是成功的software (含iTunes) 在一個漂亮的盒子裡，Mac 說穿了也是一個成功的 software 在一個漂亮的盒子裡。Apple 甚至比較喜歡把自己定義為 software company。說真的，山寨當道，hardware 可以很快被模仿走，software 卻很難，君不見市面流通的山寨版 iPhone OS 還是長得很山寨？獲利模式建立在 software solution 之上的公司，要時時擔心被大量盜版，但若同時擁有 hareware + software 的 vertical solution，可以握有更多對產品品質的掌控度。)
Bill Gates: The mainstream is always under attack. (簡潔有力，Windows, Office = mainstream)
Steve Jobs: …What I’m saying is, I think the marriage of some really great client apps with some really great cloud services is incredibly powerful and right now, can be way more powerful than just having a browser on the client. (WOW, Steve Jobs 也 echoed 微軟的 Software Plus Services 策略。)
Bill Gates: …How quickly all these things that have been somewhat specialized, the navigation device, the digital wallet, the phone, the camera, the video camera, how quickly those all come together, it’s hard to chart out. But eventually, you’ll be able to pick something that has the capability to do every one of those things. (my thought: 創新比較有可能發生在 specialized devices 上，但 specilized devices 終究會匯聚成 genenal purpose devices。然後失去創新動力，然後再引領出另外一波 specialized devices 創新，然後再匯聚，and the process repeats itself again and again.)
Steve Jobs: …No, that wasn’t my answer. You know, when Bill and I first met each other and worked together in the early days, generally, we were both the youngest guys in the room, right? Individually or together. I’m about six months older than he is, but roughly the same age. And now when we’re working at our respective companies, I don’t know about you, but I’m the oldest guy in the room most of the time. And that’s why I love being here.
…And, you know, I think of most things in life as either a Bob Dylan or a Beatles song, but there’s that one line in that one Beatles song, “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” And that’s clearly true here. (回首從前，Seteve Jobs 和 Bill Gates 很早就互相認識，也曾是全公司最年輕的員工，如今兩卻往往是”the oldest in the room”。)
Steve Jobs: …You know, because Woz and I started the company based on doing the whole banana, we weren’t so good at partnering with people. And, you know, actually, the funny thing is, Microsoft’s one of the few companies we were able to partner with that actually worked for both companies. And we weren’t so good at that, where Bill and Microsoft were really good at it because they didn’t make the whole thing in the early days and they learned how to partner with people really well.
And I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well. And I don’t think Apple learned that until, you know, a few decades later. (初期 Microsoft 在尋找合作夥伴這方面做的比 Apple 好很多。Steve Jobs 甚至認為，如果當年Apple也多一點”partnering DNA”，情況也許會大不相同。)
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And here is the bonus - Mac. v.s. PC, kiddy version:
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