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07 Feb 2007
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has given an unusually candid interview in which he pours scorn on claims made in recent Apple commercials which feature Bill Gates and Steve Jobs lookalikes in the characters of 'PC' and 'Mac'.
Speaking to Steven Levy from Newsweek Gates displayed annoyance at the adverts, which include scenes where the 'PC' character complains about being infested with viruses and depreciating in value.
Other adverts promote Apple's superiority in making home movies, the difficulties in upgrading to Vista and dealing with the home computing environment.
"I don't think the over 90 per cent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are," said Gates.
"I don't know why [Apple is] acting like it's superior. I don't even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you're really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There's not even the slightest shred of truth to it."
Gates also had some choice words on Apple's security strategy and the low incidence of virus attacks on Apple's platforms.
"Nowadays, 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 a Windows machine," he said.
Gates acknowledged that there had already been security updates for Vista, but maintained that this is normal operating practice and good security.
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Do you agree?
Good work Bill!
There is defiantly a lot of misrepresentations in the Mac Adds. And to quote "Gates is a sore loser", It is hard to be a sore loser when you have been winning for so long most people can't remember a time you were not winning.
Posted by: Jake 23 Mar 2007
Cannibis?
Are you high DaCheetah? I think it was a british security firm Corsaire who said that windows had 263000 pieces of malware for it, and the Mac had 7, none of which were particularly destructive or could be installed without being a total dolt. Mr. Gates claimed that the Mac platform was being hijacked every day, taken over by malware, and Windows machines would be hard pressed to be attacked once a month. Given basic mathematical probability, the Mac would only be taken over once every 3130 years if the windows machine were only taken over once a month.
Posted by: Clay Garland 22 Mar 2007
You're *supposed* to love the PC guy
The whole gist of the ad campaign is that you sympathize with the PC guy, and feel his pain. This makes you think about the difficulty of using the PC instead of a Mac. Your sympathy for someone else's suffering doesn't generally include a desire to go through the same pain yourself. -jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph 21 Mar 2007
He lost it
Bill kinda lost it in the emotion of the moment. I guess he knew about the "Month of Apple Bugs" project where a group published a bug a day for a month. The problem is, these were bugs that may have been real, but they weren't any exploits out there in the wild. So Bill was more than exaggerating when he said that a Mac OS X system could be totally taken over every day.
Posted by: Collin Ong 21 Mar 2007
Love the PC Guy
I guess I'm an old dullard, love that PC Guy. The Mac Guy reminds me of my kids - perhaps they're marketing for a younger group? As for Gate's comment regarding Mac vulnerabilities, sorry that Mac system he was citing was set to be wide open in terms of security settings - not as it arrives from the factory, clamped down and secure. At the moment, the only way to get in and wreak havoc on a Mac is with permissions granted. I run a Windows 2000 platform in my office as a reminder of the work involved in maintaining a windows machine. I do use it, but it takes up much too much time in maintenance for spy, adware and virus issues. Talked to an engineer friend yesterday, he's a pc guy. He got a new machine with Vista. He can't run Adobe Acrobat, because Vista makes him install it every time he tries to use it. What a dog OS. His advice to me and anyone else considering Vista is to hold off until Microsoft gets some of these serious bugs worked out. He's being sent a copy of XP Professional until the bugs are worked out. Good luck with Bill's Mac-like OS. Remember, all that glitters is not gold.
Posted by: Zar 21 Mar 2007
I thought he went to Harvard?
I know he didn't graduate, but someone that smart should understand that the ads don't call Windows users dullards, its calling the operating system the dullard.
Posted by: Lorenzo Thurman 21 Mar 2007
I hate to say it
I hate to say it, but I have to agree with the evil Mr Gates on this one, there is not a scrap of truth in those mac ads. I've seen all of them, and have been able to refute every single one. Granted there were a couple where I had to point out that you can use *nix instead of windows on a PC, but most of them are just plain wrong, even when up against MS windows. I'm certainly not saying that windows is a great, or even terribly good OS, but lying to make a product look worse just so someone will buy your's implies you have your own shortcomings, and having used both macs and PCs, I can assure you macs have just as many as PCs.
Posted by: DaCheetah 21 Mar 2007
Gates is a sore loser
Gates can't compete on quality. He's in the scam of selling broken software as a business model. Apple, on the other hand, prides itself on making things work right...and easy to use. Bill tries to fall back on his installed base as a point of superiority but he just comes off as a sore loser. He was a jerk when MS was on top, and he's still a jerk on his way to the bottom.
Posted by: prock 21 Mar 2007
The Truth Hurts (even if u r a billionaire)
Even the PC users group in our city has the same views as these spots, and they still love their pc cause they are used to them. Still the wintel marketing spots are sooo much cozyier to the spirit.
Posted by: gilbert 08 Feb 2007
What happened to positive Advertising?
Apple's adverts remind me of todays Political Parties instead of extolling their own virtues they have resorted to attacking their opponents to distract from their own shortcomings. Me doth think Apple have nothing new to say.
Posted by: Joseph Harrison 08 Feb 2007
Every day?
Every day? Every day? Odd we haven't seen much of this, are the media being censored?
Posted by: Tom Zunder 07 Feb 2007
To Paraphrase The Bard
"Me thinks he doth protest too much..." As a lomg time Mac and PC user, I have watched the ads with interest. I think each one hits hard on a true shortcoming of the PCs. If nothing else, the culture / attitudes of the the two companies are very accurately portrayed. Sorry Bill, but it's all true...
Posted by: CT 07 Feb 2007