I've invited here today 3 industry experts
to have a panel discussion on software
and now ladies and gentleman
the Macintosh software dating game
welcome to the Macintosh software datinggame software CEOs could I please ask
you to introduce yourselves
Hi Fred Gibbons president of Software Publishing Corporation
Hi I'm Mitch Kapor president of Lotus we do a product called 1-2-3
my name is Bill Gates
I'm chairman of Microsoft and during 1984
Microsoft expects to get half it's revenues
from Macintosh software
software magnate number three, when was your first date with Macintosh?
we've been working with the Mac
for almost two years now and we put some of our a really good people on it
software CEO number three
will Macintosh be the third industry standard?
well to create a new standard
it take something that's not just a little bit different it takes something
that's really new
and really captures people's imagination and the Macintosh
of all the machines I've ever seen is the only one that meet that standard
software CEO number three describe your ideal relationship with Apple
we'll be selling our software
independently so the key thing is that Apple gets a lot of consistent standard
machines out there quickly
well sorry Steve, time's up ... we'd like to give Steve a few moments to
decide today's winner
OK Steve, who's the winner?
apples are red IBM's blue
if Mac's gonna be the third milestone I need all of you
Now I’d like to talk about meaningful partners
Apple lives in an ecosystem
and
it needs help from other partners
It needs to help other partners
and relationships that...
are destructive don’t help anybody in this industry as it is today
so
during the last several weeks, we have looked at some of the relationships
and one has stood out
as a relationship that hasn’t been going so well but had the potential
I think, to be great for both companies
The discussions actually began
because there were some
patent disputes
and, rather than … [Laughter.]I know
rather than repeating history, I’m extremely proud of both companies
that they have resolved these differences in a very, very professional way
and I happen to have a special guest with me today
via satellite downlink
and if we could get him up on the stage right now …
Some of the most exciting work that I’ve done in my career
has been the work that I’ve done with Steve on the Macintosh
Whether it’s the first introduction
or doing products like Mac Excel
these have been major milestones
we’re very excited about the new release we’re building. This is called Mac Office 98
we do expect to get it out by the end of this year
and I think it’s going to really set a new benchmark for doing a good job with performance
and exploiting unique Mac features
in many ways it’s more advanced
than what we’ve done on the Windows platform.
We’re also excited about Internet Explorer
and we’ve got a very dedicated team that’s down in California that works on that product
and the code is really specially developed for the Macintosh
it’s not just a port of what we’ve done in the Windows environment
and we look forward to the feedback from all of you as we move forward doing more Macintosh software
thanks
the era of setting this up as a competition
between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I’m concerned
this is about getting Apple healthy
and this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry
to get healthy and prosper again
Well, thank you.
Before we get started
there were some pioneers–of course, we have the pioneers here on the stage
but there were some other really important pioneers in the video we just saw
and a couple of them are here in the audience
so, Mitch Kapor, who is a regular
could you just stand up
wherever you are? There he is.
and
And Fred Gibbons
who has not come to D before, but is here tonight. Fred
There’s Fred right there
And I don’t know if he’s in the room
but I do want to recognize
our fellow journalist, Brent Schlender from Fortune
who, to my knowledge, did the last joint interview these guys did
It was not onstage,
but it was Fortune magazine interview
Brent, I don’t know if you’re in the room. If you are
can you stand? Maybe he’s...
way over there.
So let’s get started
I wanted to ask
there’s been a lot of mano-a-mano/catfight kind of thing
in a lot of the blogs and the press and stuff like that
and we wanted to
the first question I was interested in asking is
what you think each has contributed to the computer and technology industry
starting with you, Steve, for Bill, and vice versa.
umm...
Bill built the first software company
in the industry and
I think he built the first software company before anybody
really in our industry knew what a software company was
except for these guys
And that was huge
That was really huge.
And the business model that they ended up pursuing turned out to be the one that
worked really well, you know, for the industry
I think the biggest thing was, Bill was
really focused on software before almost anybody else
had a clue that it was really the software.
That’s what I see. I mean, a lot of other things you could say, but that’s the high order bit.
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
keep them at your company and keep them working, you know
doing the best work of their lives, hopefully
And Bill’s been able to stay with it for all these years.
Bill, how about the contribution of Steve and Apple?
Well, first, I want to clarify: I’m not Fake Steve Jobs.
What Steve’s done is quite phenomenal
and if you look back to 1977
that Apple II computer, the idea that it would be a mass-market machine
you know, the bet that was made there by Apple uniquely
there were other people with products
but the idea that this could be an incredible empowering phenomenon
Apple pursued that dream
Then one of the most fun things we did was the Macintosh and
that was so risky. People may not remember that Apple really bet the company
Lisa hadn’t done that well
and some people were saying that general approach wasn’t good
but the team that Steve built even within the company
to pursue that
even some days it felt a little ahead of its time
I don’t know if you remember that Twiggy disk drive and…
One hundred twenty-eight K.
Oh, the Twiggy disk drive, yes.
Steve gave a speech once
which is one of my favorites
where he talked about, in a certain sense, we build the products that we want to use ourselves
so he’s really pursued that with incredible taste and elegance
that has had a huge impact on the industry.
And his ability to
always come around and figure out where that next bet should be
