Recapping Bill Gates' Peter Keating Moment

The blogosphere chimes in on Bill Gate's Peter Keating moment. Presented in the same order they were presented on Macsurfer.

1. Gates slams Apple 'Get a Mac' ads - Mac - Macworld UK

2. DailyTech - Bill Gates Speaks on Windows, Criticizes Mac Ads

Click then scroll down to the comments for a very entertaining Mac vs PC Holy war.

3. SwitchBlog: Bill Gates' new found indignation can do nothing but help Apple.
Our commentary.

4. Apple Matters | Memo to Bill Gates: Don't argue about the Mac

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.

Bill Gates losing his cool is fascinating. Especially because he was so poised when Charlie Rose asked him about the iPod the other night.

Apple Matter's goes on tell Bill what he "should have said" and what his marketing department had probably coached him to say. It's a good read with a great finish.

5. Nodepoint " Archive " Honest Bill:

"He also goes on to say that security guys come out with an exploit for Mac OS X every day, allowing your system to be completely taken over. Really? Of course, Bill can't point to a single exploit for that, and Levy never presses him on this statement, or any others."

Levy didn't have to press him on it. Gates had already rammed his foot into his mouth so thoroughly, that the rest of the interview was almost filler. Pressing him on it would have been pointless. I'm not seeing a conspiracy, just an extraordinarily bad interview given by the richest man in the world. That is the story.

6. Slow News Day " Apple Recon

7. The Macalope " Blog Archive " Liar, liar, ill-fitting pants on fire.:

"The Macalope himself is getting a little tired of the Windows/Mac OS "who copied who" argument. It was more interesting during the naescent development of the desktop operating system market (indeed, Mr. Gruber's detailed analysis is a walk down memory lane), but now that both platforms are mature, it would simply be irresponsible if they didn't copy ideas from one another."

Indeed, but some ideas are more obvious than others, and some ideas are patented. Is it a good thing that Apple has patents all over gestural interfaces? If it keeps Microsoft honest then yest, but if it keeps Linux out of the game, that might not be so cool.

This one is a must-read (other than Switchblog's own cutting edge commentary of course). Macalope is the heir-apparent to MacWeek's old "Mac the Knife" column.

What's really sad is that it would be hard to make Bill Gates the Jackass of the week. It was just too pathetic.

Also, I love the quote about objective C code and brackets, but I'm not seeing a conspiracy. The substantial edits, are about readability and not revisionism. If I'm wrong about that, Bob Woodward, or more likely a budding young journalist would have to do some serious digging. But, I seriously doubt that Newsweek and MSN would risk their credibility that way.

8. MyMac.com: publishing since 1995

9. Gates slams Apple 'Get a Mac' ads - Mac - Macworld UK

10. Mac360 - War Of Words: Bill Gates Attacks Apple, Macs.

11. Daring Fireball: Lies, Damned Lies, and Bill Gates
Refered to in our earlier post.

12. Bill Gates not a Mac fan like Jim Allchin | Brian Reilly's other weblog

13. Gates: Apple's a liar. looprumors.com

14. MacUser: Bill Gates knocks Apple, makes no sense whatsoever:

"Oh, Billy boy. With all of your philanthropy, I thought you'd outgrown the whole petty business thing. I'd developed an almost grudging respect for you--then you and go and throw that all away. It's sad is what it is."

Sad is right.

But as for anybody doing that [hacking] to Windows once a month, well, Bill's right: hacking Windows is like Lays potato chips--you can't do it just once. I don't really understand what Bill's trying to say about the interface concepts. That Apple predates Microsoft with those ideas is not even an argument--it's a matter of the linearity of the space-time continuum.

I agree that the commercial is hyperbolic, but really, not even the slightest shred of truth? What next, Bill? Are you going to tell us there's little confusion in picking the right version of Vista?

15. MacDailyNews | Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows:

MacDailyNews Take: The reviews of Windows Vista speak for themselves. "Chrome-plated turd" is not ambiguous. Gates sees the end. His free ride on the back of ignorance is over. Gates sees his legacy, especially in comparison to the one Steve Jobs will leave, and it's not pretty. Does he really think that he can buy - or lie - his way out of it? Not likely, Karma's a bitch not easily escaped.

This is another must read. Check out the comments marked with red text.

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This lapse of judgement by Bill Gates is a watershed event. The commentary over the next week will probably lean toward Mac journalists and bloggers being "up in arms" but history will see it otherwise. There is nothing here to be up in arms about, it's just sad. This silly rant marked the beginning of the end for Microsoft, or at least for Bill Gates.

I've always felt that Bill Gates is Peter Keating and Steve Jobs is Howard Roark, but now that Gates has proven himself to be Peter Keating, I feel little pleasure in pointing it out. The only regret I have about all of this is that I didn't do a detailed comparison of those characters earlier.

On the first read I thought The Fountainhead was nothing more than elitist tripe, but what an amazing character study it's turned out to be. It's almost playing itself out in real life but with much bigger characters.