Gates and Jobs make nice

CARLSBAD, Calif. -- The audience was expecting daggers, but it got roses instead when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had a rare public conversation Wednesday night at The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference.

The line of the night came from Jobs, who closed the conversation by noting that he thinks of most things in life as either a Bob Dylan song or Beatles song, then quoted a Beatles lyric from "Two of Us."

" 'You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.' That's clearly true here," he said.

It may sound saccharine, but the uplifting, conciliatory message had a cathartic effect on an audience full of high-powered executives and investors in cutthroat industries going through dramatic changes.

Expectations were high before the appearance, with billionaires and their minions from the tech and media industries lined up at the door for the best seats in what promised to be an epic showdown.

The rivalry between Microsoft and Apple has intensified over the last year as Apple has continued its renaissance, growing its computer business faster than the Windows PC market, while needling its Redmond rival with a series of mocking, sarcastic advertisements.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is going after Apple's cash cow with a line of iPod competitors and steadily expanding its presence in home entertainment markets that Apple covets.

But away from the office, the two godfathers of the personal-computer industry turned out to be more friends than enemies.

The men sounded a lot alike, agreed on most topics and ended up giving each other warm praise that practically brought them and the audience to tears.

Much of their 90-minute chat, moderated by Journal columnists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, was spent reminiscing about working together in the early days of the Macintosh and their enthusiasm for the current flood of innovation in the tech industry.

They also offered somewhat different visions for the future of computers when asked where things will head in the next five years. Gates said people will have multiple computers of different sizes, including a small pocket-size device, a workstation at home and at the office, and a large screen for entertainment with computing power and an Internet connection.

Jobs said he's expecting radical advances to come in what he called "post-PC" devices, an area where Apple has been focused on developing the soon-to-be-introduced iPhone as a combination phone, music player and Internet device.

Both were enthusiastic about how their latest work has been unexpectedly embraced by older generations. Gates said he was surprised by the way chief executives who grew up before keyboards became such a big part of life took to the hand-controlled tabletop computer that Microsoft unveiled this week. Jobs said older customers are especially big users of Macs' videoconferencing capabilities and of Apple stores' training sessions.

Jobs also noted that both Apple and Microsoft consider themselves to be software companies, noting that the iPod "is really just the software -- it's in a beautiful box, but it's software."

"There aren't very many software companies left, and Microsoft is a software company," he said, when asked how much he watches his competitor. "We look at what they do. We think some of it's really great. Some of it's competitive, some of it's not."

One person in the audience praised Gates' philanthropy, drawing huge applause, then asked how both feel about their legacies. Both said they're happy to have contributed so much to the rise of personal computing.

"The most important work I got a chance to be involved with, no matter what I do, is the personal computer," Gates said, explaining that that's been his obsession and life's work.

"It's lucky for me some of the skills and resources that I was able to develop through those experiences can be applied to the benefit of the people who haven't had technology, including medicine, working for them. So it's an incredible blessing to have two things like that," he said. "But if you look inside my brain, it's filled with software ... that's not going to change."

Asked if he envied "Bill's second act," Jobs said, "The world's a better place because Bill realized his goal wasn't to be the richest guy in a cemetery. He's doing a lot of good with the money he's made.

"I sort of look at us as two of the luckiest guys on the planet," Jobs said. "We found what we love to do, and we were at the right place at the right time."

Toward the end, Swisher asked what sort of misunderstandings people have about their relationship.

"We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade," Jobs, 52, quipped.

The 51-year-old Gates paused for a long time, then said, "I don't think either of us have anything to complain about." He talked about how much fun it was to work on the Mac and how much he appreciates having another old-timer around to swap stories with.

"It's been fun to work together," he said. "I actually miss some of the people who aren't around anymore. People come and go in this industry; it's nice when people stick around and they have some context about what works and what doesn't work."

The mutual admiration continued. Asked which qualities they envied in each other, each offered interesting perspectives

"I'd give a lot to have Steve's taste," Gates said, then tried to calm the laughter, saying it's "not a joke at all."

He talked about how in the past they sat in Mac product-review sessions. "I'd view it as an engineering question," he said. "I'd see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that is hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different. It's magic. In that case, wow."

Jobs said Apple wasn't as good at partnering with people as Microsoft, perhaps because of its legacy as a company that built entire systems itself.

"Bill and Microsoft were very good at it," he said.

"I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well," Jobs said, adding that the company "didn't learn that for decades."

Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com