Bill Gates Brags About Vista, Reacts to Apple's Latest Ads

fr8_liner writes "In an unusually candid interview with Newsweek Bill Gates lays it all on the line, bragging about the benefits of Vista, ragging on Apple for their 'I'm a Mac' ads, and claiming primacy in a number of features shared by Vista and OSX. Specifically, it is Mr. Gates' opinion that the Apple adverts are misleading if not untruthful. He makes the claim that 'security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.' The interview also touches on the future of Microsoft and Operating systems, and some of the company's plans for internet-based computing."

ring ring

> And then I might edit a high-definition movie

Bill, is that the MPAA on the phone?

Re:ring ring

Actually, he probably wouldn't get it.

He probably has 20 or 30 HD Camcorders lying around unused, and thought, hey - I can edit HD movies.

I really don't want to know what's on those tapes. You shouldn't either.

Re:ring ring

I really don't want to know what's on those tapes.

If we're talking typical nerd sexual activity, it'll be hours and hours of Melinda saying "no".

Re:ring ring

Sorry bud, GP got it right. MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America [wikipedia.org], while RIAA = Recording Industry Association of America [wikipedia.org].

Re:ring ring

Sorry bud, GP got it right. MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America, while RIAA = Recording Industry Association of America.

And together they form the MAFIAA = Music And Film Industry Association of America!! [mafiaa.org]

Re:ring ring

NSFW

Bill is reacting because the media has woken up

In nearly every single Vista article, there is mention of OS X and how it's had these features for years, which is a refreshing change. It's been extremely frustrating for Mac users the last six years because they had this OS that, despite early flaws, was years ahead of its time, but the tech media continued to ignore it. Maybe this started after OS X Tiger was released, but since last year's Vista delay, the media has been really harsh toward Vista and praiseworthy toward Apple. It's like they're finally giving Apple some long overdue credit for keeping the momentum going on OS X while the "biggest software company in the world" couldn't even squeeze out an update to its aging Win32 codebase.

It's like the press finally realized how behind Windows is and how it never really came to dominate the market based on its merits. Microsoft just got lucky with a braindead IBM contract in the 80s and rode the commodity PC wave. Everybody has realized that Microsoft isn't that big and scary at all, and now that they're being forced to compete with Google, Apple, and others, we see just how floundering they are. The tactics they used to use in the 90s (announcing vaporware to freeze the market, releasing buggy 1.0 versions and getting OEMs to bundle them over competitors, etc.) don't work anymore.

Vista is a headache to use. The interface, the extra dialogs, the multiple menu styles, the redundant buttons...it's a schizophrenic OS, and it even runs your games slower. Apps like Windows DVD Maker are a pathetic joke compared to iLife. I bet we didn't see an iLife '07 announcement at MacWorld because it's going to be bundled right into Leopard as part of the OS, just to stick it to Microsoft even further.

Seeing Bill's reaction is just funny. This isn't the first interview he's been asked about OS X--there's a clip on YouTube where a CNN guy asks him about it as well, and Bill just pauses and reacts. It's funny. The press is finally waking up.

Has the media has woken up?

I think some media has woken up. Not enough... the really mainstream media is still the same, "The new Vista is here, and Bill Gates says it's awesome." Main newspapers and TV stories I've seen (at least in australia) are not doing journalism, they're just rephrasing MS marketing material as a news item. It shits me.

It is good to see more tech-specialised media having a go at him. Still, his reaction majorly upsets me - page 2 of TFA in particular, where he first whines about the lies of mac. Then he goes and makes blatant lies such as implying that OSX stole concepts which they announced, because Vista security took too long... (erk), and

Let's be realistic, who came up with [the] file, edit, view, help [menu bar]? Do you want to go back to the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts came from?

So.. MS came up with File, Edit, View and Help... while Apple came up with the GUI and the DESKTOP.

And also I have yet to see any interviewer get to the hard issues - DRM, WGA, licensing, and so on. All the media focusses on is the visible issues - HD media, parental controls and aero.

Re:I'm ready to review OS X. Send me a Mac!

> What I see is that nearly every review of Vista is written by a Mac user.

No, I think what you are noticing is that every IT writer in existence in 2007 has run a Mac at least a little bit, whereas in 2001 when Windows XP came out, Mac OS X was just a few months old, and it was rare that any IT press knew anything existed other than Microsoft. Especially over the last couple of years the combination of iPod success and Apple-Intel switch has created a situation where many IT writers are writing about Windows all day then going home to their Macs. You can't put a new Windows with a Mac skin and Mac features in front of these guys and they don't notice. These are also the same guys who were chatting up WinFS and now have to explain why certain dialog boxes in Windows still look like NT 3.1.

When Windows 95 came out, very few people noticed that the way the UI looked was a complete rip-off of NeXT, because hardly anybody had run a NeXT system, or even seen a screenshot from a NeXT system. The Vista skin is similarly very much like Mac OS X, but the problem for Bill Gates is that everybody in IT knows that. You can't just wink about it anymore. The Mac is running the same 64 bit Core chips as everyone else and there are even 4-way Xeon 1U servers so it is really disingenuous to play the same old game that Bill Gates plays of pretending Apple doesn't exist. IT used to play along but like you say, they seem to all be Mac users now.

Re:Be careful what you wish for, Bill.

If he's referring to the Month of Apple bugs, then the premise an outright lie in the first place. Most of those are denial of service, priviledge escalation, arbitrary code with non-root permission, potential exploits, etc. On top of that, they've thrown in 3rd party apps to fill out the month. I'm not saying the MOAB people are doing a bad job, but it's a shame to see them being used in this way, because MS shills they are not.

As for getting what he wishes for, he already does - on a scale that OSX will never see. People measure the cost of the MS disasters in the billions of dollars. Way to miss the point Microsoft.

PC: Why must you say these hurtful things, Mac?

I'm certain he was referring to MoAB. My OS X setup is unaffected by the majority of MoAB "bugs"; as you said, many rely on third party apps (and therefore aren't really "Apple" bugs at all). That's not the only reason Mr. Gates can rightly be accused of a lie: "every day"? As in "every single day" since a particular date? MoAB had a hard time stretching a full month out of the few security flaws they were able to find in Apple's software, but a full year? And given the restriction of operating system (Tiger) bugs ONLY?

I was opposed to the MoAB project because I thought it irresponsible. I would say the same of YoAB (Year of...) but my hat would come off to anyone who could accomplish

Gates lied about several other things in this interview, even contradicting himself: he claims he hasn't seen the Get A Mac campaign ads (which are broadcast during some of America's most popular prime time television shows) but knows full well what sort of creature Apple paints Microsoft Windows to be.

Apple has done more than they could hope for with their Get A Mac campaign: they've really really pushed Bill's new Aero-skinned captionless Start button.

Re:PC: Why must you say these hurtful things, Mac?

In that case, XP and Vista are pretty secure. It's those third party apps like Outlook and Internet Explorer which are the issue.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

> I haven't heard about all those Mac exploits he's referring to, have you?

I have. They exist. (Most of) The exploits themselves would take a phenomenal amount of knowledge about the entire underlying OS to turn them into a full-fledged rootkit installation exploit but they do exist.

> When somebody comes to us [after discovering a vulnerability] we've got [a fix] before there is any exploit

Bill. I thought you were an uber-hacker. You should know better. This is only true if they come to you with the vulnerability before they've written the full-fledged exploit.

> The number [of violations] will be way less because we've done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn't done any of those things.

This statement is borderline libelous. Just the facts, please.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

I thought he played with some code, made a mess out of it, bought someone else's code, then licensed yet another third party to replace his original attempt at coding?

But he did pick the box color.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

Which also means physical access to the machine.

Hell, I can just yell "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all" and hose a Vista machine.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

> The number [of violations] will be way less because we've done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn't done any of those things.

This statement is borderline libelous. Just the facts, please.

Well, in a lawyer-logic kinda way, he's right. Apple has done NONE of the exact things Microsoft has done to their OS.
Like, if Microsoft fixes a flaw in their security that doesn't exist on a Mac, then obviously Apple has not, nor will it ever take that step. Can't you see how risky it is to pick a Mac, which didn't benefit from years and years of exploit expertise?
Would you want to risk getting infected on a machine without any known exploits? You should really pick the one with a lot of known exploits... better go with the devil you know!

[end lawyer logic]

I'd rather pick the one where holes are patched before they're exploited, but that's just me.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

I am. but it is still funny ;)

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

I assume he's referring to the Month of Apple Bugs [info-pull.com]

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

It ships with a lot of stuff, but very little of it is turned on by default, and most users will never change that. I don't even think that OS X ships with sshd running by default. It's a very minimalist configuration, in terms of enabled services.

It's not a totally fair comparison; saying that some of the installed software on Mac OS X has vulnerabilities, is like saying, if you turn off Windows' firewall, and run these services, you can get rooted. Well, duh, in both cases. What's really important is the default configuration, (or the 'minimal configuration necessary to get real work done') because that's what 90% of users will ever have running.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

It ships with a lot of stuff, but very little of it is turned on by default

Actually, NONE of it is turned on by default.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

What hasn't sunk in with Bill and probably never will is that most Windows users are pragmatists and not fanboys. There simply isn't much in the OS to incite rabid love and loyalty, just the sober realization and acceptance that it's an OS with the widest hardware support, the most available software, and which runs on a cheaper and more open hardware platform. Other than that, there are plenty of more elegant and emotionally engaging operating systems out there.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

Actually, most I know ARE. Everything else they own is also shiny. Very few Mac fans I know like it for the "right" reasons, but because it's shiny.

I've never met one of these mythical "I like Macs because they are shiny" people. Perhaps you live in a very strange neck of the woods, like Beverly Hills or something?

The vast majority of Mac users I know are people who like them because they make a lot of money out of them - in areas like publishing, music, photography and video. Macs have only become "shiny" recently. They used to be beige, just like PCs. So why did people buy them then? Why did so many Mac users switch to Mac clones that were boring and fairly ugly, when Apple licensed the OS?

Remember the world before Photoshop, the laser printer, and Desktop Publishing? You could only get Photoshop for the Mac. Apple brought the Postscript laser printer to the masses, and revolutionized the publishing industry. Same with music. For a long time, Pro Tools on a Mac was the only thing worth using for professional-grade digital recording. And today Apple has powerful and easy-to-use video editing software. Most Mac users are users first - they care more about their field of work (often a creative field) than they do about the Mac itself. It's just the Mac makes otherwise complex things very easy, so you can focus on the work, and not "operating a computer." There's a whole generation of filmmakers who are growing up on Final Cut Pro right now, because they want to make films, not because they want a shiny computer.

I think most likely it is you who has the superficial tastes, and are projecting your own interpretation onto people, rather than trying to understand their true motivations. Sure, users might appreciate the looks as well, they might like the Aqua interface. That doesn't mean they bought it because it is pretty. I doubt they wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't a great system as well as being pretty.

In fact, that pretty much sums up how Microsoft thinks, and how a lot of Windows users think. They think if they copy the "look" of the Mac, then they can have the Mac's appeal. But that's just superficial, "skin deep" beauty - the Mac offers form and function together. I'm reminded of when the original iMac was a huge hit, and other companies thought they could capture market-share by adding colored panels to their machines, while maintaining the same clunky form-factor and Windows OS. Notice how you didn't see Mac users buying those machines based on appearance, and they ultimately failed to interest anyone?

As an example of this in user-space, why do so many Windows users use absurd animated cursors, or elaborate screen-savers, or "skins" on applications? Why do so many Windows gamers "pimp" their PC with neon and case-mods? Those trends never caught on in the Mac world - especially the "skinning" thing. So, what explains the desire of Windows users to change the surface appearance of their system, without improving the functionality? Often these appearance mods actually get in the way of usability, let alone enhance it.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

sober realization and acceptance

Mind you, that's after all of the denial, anger, bargaining and depression.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

John Hodgeman is great and people like him better than the Mac guy." At least he would have come off more sympathetically.

Speaking of Hodgeman and sympathy, did you see Gates on The Daily Show? The instant the interview was over, Gates did an about-face and high-tailed it out of there. Didn't even sit down and do the faux-chat thing during the transition to the commercial break. The guy couldn't generate sympathy if he tried, he has no social graces at all. He didn't even use any humor during the interview - he spoke like it was a advertisement for laundry detergent, not an interview with Jon Stewart.

I agree. A couple of years ago I heard him speak in person at WinHeck. At the beginning of the speech he did sort of a "light introduction" (for a normal person I would say "joke" but for Gates that would be aiming too high) where he talked about the story of him saying that people didn't need more than 64K. (Or was it 640K, I don't remember.) And basically I was waiting for the punch line - there wasn't one. He basically just said "I never said that". And the whole thing was so completely irrelevant that it was just stupid.

And then his keynote was so boring that I actually fell asleep.

I've been to WWDC several times and seen Steve Jobs speak and I have never fallen asleep. Steve Jobs may not be the best jokester in the world, but he is a very good communicator. In fact, I can't picture him going on Jon Steward's show because: Jobs isn't funny enough to do the show well, he doesn't do self deprecating humor well, AND he is smart enough to already be aware that he couldn't pull it off. Gates is the sort of nerd who just doesn't know/care that he is not funny or interesting or tasteful.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

"Mac ads are as inaccurate as Microsoft ads"

Lemme fix that for you.

"Ads are inaccurate."

By definition.

Re:Well, of course he's saying that.

When I first saw these new Mac vs PC ads I was very disappointed that Apple was doing the whole "Mac vs PC" thing. That felt tired and still does.

However they have steadily won me over because they are communicating some really important technical stuff in a non-technical way. I know many of us here would rather see a 5 minute video where user A upgrades Tiger to Leopard and DONE! and user B gets started upgrading XP to Vista, he is still typing in a product code and user A is making a movie already. What they have done instead is anthropomorphize the computers themselves and therefore Mac goes "upgrade? isn't it just straightforward?" and PC goes "oh, no, you've got to do this and that and this and that" and he is in a hospital gown and scared about losing functionality. That's the actual fears of Windows users who are thinking of upgrading to Vista, and that is actually something that Apple should be telling its customers about its competitors' products. You have this guy George Ou who is an IT writer who knocks the Mac in a ridiculously inaccurate way, and he got Vista recently, and after a week of not being able to install it, he gave up and put XP back on his machine and put Vista on the shelf and this guy is an IT writer with a name-brand 2006 PC. You just don't have that on a Mac ... you don't ever upgrade a Mac and lose your audio.

Truth or Dare?

'I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.'

oh don't worry Mr Gates, we will.

Re:Truth or Dare?

Lets see: 140,000 known Windows exploits, most of them surfacing in the last 12 years makes that at least one exploit released every 45 minutes - or there abouts. Hell, Vista has an installed base smaller than BeOS right now and it has more exploits already.

Re:Truth or Dare?

Care you cite some examples?

Sure. No problem. Will this one [slashdot.org] work for you?

Re:Truth or Dare?

I guess, but I really wanted an example of a BeOs user.

Re:Truth or Dare?

you do realise that as far as Bill's concerned, those 140,000 exploits don't exist anymore... When they put Vista out the door, they got to "reset" the Windows Exploit Counter... as of 30th Jan 2007, XP is no longer Windows... Vista is Windows

Re:Truth or Dare?

Lets see: 140,000 known Windows exploits, most of them surfacing in the last 12 years makes that at least one exploit released every 45 minutes

Malware != Vulnerability

Those 140,000 "exploits" are largely redundant and exploit a small number of actual vulnerabilities - most of them being the user.