microsoft. bill gates

In reflecting on Steve Jobs' tenure at Apple, it's impossible to separate the role Microsoft played.

The companies, as well as Jobs and Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates, helped pioneer the industry and define an era. The two executives partnered at various times, competed all the time, and challenged one another in ways that helped shape the landscape of techdom. It's a complex relationship.

In the early days of computing, Apple depended on software from Microsoft for its Macintosh computer. There's a charming 1983 video, aired in an edited form for the D: All Things Digital Conference … Read more

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has written a new book that takes aim at Bill Gates, and, according to some critics, fails to live up to reality.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which received an early copy of Allen's book, "Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft," much of the book focuses on Allen's efforts as a philanthropist and entrepreneur. Allen's personal Web site claims he has given more than $1 billion to philanthropic efforts. He is also well-known in sports circles, thanks to his ownership of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers.… Read more

A tour of Bill Gates' mansion in Medina is going for a hefty price tag. The bid to tour his house (and have him guide you around) is up to $35,000. Last year, the tour sold for $8,600, the Seattle PI is reporting.

But before you run out to start bidding, it's only available to those who work at Microsoft as part of its annual charitable giving campaign. According to the Seattle PI, word slipped that the bidding was on the rise this year from Microsoft CIO Tony Scott at the Society for Information Management's SIMposium … Read more

Webware editor Josh Lowensohn joins the podcast to talk about the hack of Twitter internal documents that came to light Wednesday, and what are the larger implications for companies' security protocols now that many are storing their data in the cloud.

Plus, in another excerpt from his interview with CNET News, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates Gates shares his thoughts on how the company is doing now that he's not there full time.

Today's stories:

Mozilla gives add-on developers a tip jar

Dell poised to benefit most from PC market recovery

Wal-Mart to label products with eco ratings… Read more

Bill Gates may not be showing up at Microsoft headquarters every day, but he's certainly staying busy.

In an interview with CNET News, the Microsoft chairman talks about just a few of the things on his plate, including an effort to make a series of classic physics lectures available for free over the Internet.

Although it's unlikely to garner the audience of say, a sneezing panda, Gates said that putting great educational content online is an important part of getting people interested in science.

"When a lecture is presented as well as this, it draws more people … Read more

It's been a year since Bill Gates left full-time work at Microsoft, but he's found plenty to keep him busy.

In between trying to eradicate polio, tame malaria, and fix the broken U.S. education system, Gates has managed to fulfill a dream of taking some classic physics lectures and making them available free over the Web. The lectures, done in 1964 by noted scientist (and Manhattan Project collaborator) Richard Feynman, take notions such as gravity and explains how they work and the broad implications they have in understanding the ways of the universe.

Gates first saw the … Read more

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer are optimistic about the power of tech to recover from the current recession and bring business along with it, according to speeches they made at Microsoft's 13th annual CEO Summit earlier this week.

Although the event was private, Microsoft released four clips of the keynote speeches made Tuesday by Gates and Ballmer, which strike a positive tone about the future.

In his keynote speech at the summit, Gates said that overall he was very optimistic about the economy with the opportunities for innovation stronger today than ever. "The drug … Read more

Melinda Gates was recently interviewed in Vogue magazine and had some rather interesting things to say about her husband and the technology in her home.

According to Gates, both she and Bill have strict rules forbidding their children from having an iPod or iPhone.

"There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household," Gates tells Vogue. "But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids."

But it gets better. Gates went on to say that there is an "inevitable lure of forbidden fruit" and "every now and then" she looks at her friends and says, "'Ooh, I wouldn't mind having that iPhone.'"

Of course, the blogosphere has erupted, adding fuel to the Bill Gates fire that might never extinguish. In fact, commenters on David Carnoy's Crave article first reporting on this story have delivered some interesting takes on the issue.

"That is kind of a pathetic insecurity that demonstrates just how little confidence Gates and wife have in the products that built their lives," a commenter named ewlech wrote.

In Gates' defense, commenter David Dudley writes, "I don't think it's a confidence issue, they just don't see a point in using their own cash to increase market share of a competitor. You certainly would not espouse Apple to use Dell servers in their internal infrastructure despite opinions of what is 'superior' or otherwise, right?"

The argument could rage for hours. But I don't think it's as difficult an issue as some might think. If I were Bill Gates and I had three children running around my mansion, I'd ban all Apple products, Nintendo consoles and handhelds, Linux, and every single Zune competitor. There's something to be said about family loyalty.… Read more

So has everyone been wandering around your office, puffing out their hairless chests and declaring "I'm a PC" with pride?

Thought not.

Visible Measures, a company that measures viral-video activity, announced this weekthat the Gates-Seinfeld ads enjoyed 4.3 million more viral views than the politely conventional "I'm a PC" campaign.

A somewhat improbable explanation was given for this enormous discrepancy. "So much viral video is basically word of mouth. And when you build a question into the creative, it gives people something to talk about," Matt Cutler, vice president of … Read more