Jobs vs. Gates

Both Gates and Jobs desired a computer on every desk, in every home, and in every device.

Jobs vs. Gates Aka Jerks vs. Nerds

Both Gates and Jobs desired a computer on every desk, in every home, and in every device. One person assumed users were NERDS, while another assumed they were JERKS. Who came out on top? NERDS took total control in round one and refused to be treated as JERKS. Jobs had been completely knocked out. In round two, Jobs persuaded all NERDS that they were actually JERKS and placed an I device in each of their hands.

There was a time when every computer user was a hardware engineer as well as a software programmer in low and high-level languages. I must say that life was simple. A ‘computer hardware Bible,’ yes, literally a bible in one volume, could exist. Similarly, all operating system functions, as well as any low or high-level language, were contained in a single volume. As a result, the entire IT library was represented by a single line of the personal bookcases.

 

Looking back in time and into the minds of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, I see that there was a battle between two IT philosophies that would mature over the next 30 years, not just an Apple-Microsoft trade rift.

 

Bill Gates’ Featured Assumptions

 

Bill Gates was a nerd who assumed that everyone else was a nerd as well, so it was fine to float buggy software for their use. People would be intelligent enough to perform minor bug fixes on their own.

 

What we got out of this philosophy: cheap hardware and software; computers in every home; a lot of nerds; thousands of ways to do the same thing BUT… not perfect.

 

Today’s average computer user formats his hard disc (or re-installs Windows) once every quarter (I’ve seen some people do it twice a week); more than half of my PC’s time is wasted in stupid updates, bug-fixes, and determining why my PC just crashed.

 

The basic vision of Steve Jobs

 

Steve Jobs, on the other hand, desired to provide us with a complete machine. He was never interested in, and was strongly opposed to, the idea of ‘open source’ or giving the user the freedom to choose how he should use his machine. Steve Jobs wanted to dictate how and what a user should do.

 

Today’s i-machines are designed for dummies, jerks, and children. My three-year-old daughter learned and began using the iPad in a matter of minutes. No matter how numerous the educational software of the DOS/Widows saga was, all required the involvement of a nerd, and even a person like me couldn’t use a PC (Windows PC actually) to teach anything to my children, not even simple ABC.

Returning to the main topic, the situation reminds me of the plot of the film ‘Alien and Predator.’ I’m not implying that Jobs is a predator and Gates is an alien, but rather that common users were bait in the ultimate battle between Alien and Predator. Users wanted to choose sides, but neither was pushed to do so, despite the fact that this is what the user wants.

 

I still think iPads and iPhones are for jerks, and nerds prefer old-fashioned Windows machines. Personally, I still prefer to use a Windows phone as a PDA for all of my serious work. Though I owned an iPhone, I did not [or perhaps trusted not to] use it for anything serious, not even as a simple reminder alarm.

 

Jobs’ IT evolution

Steve Jobs brought the technological cycle of IT evolution to a close. As a member of a generation that has witnessed this cycle in its entirety, I wonder whether I should consider myself lucky or unlucky and whether I should consider the next generation unlucky or lucky. To illustrate my point, consider the previous generation of Amateur Radio. A radio engineer was also someone who owned a tube-based radio receiver. He was familiar with antenna characteristics and the various factors that influence RF propagation. Jobs was, however, well aware of the tuning frequency, antenna length, and where it lay in relation to the ground.

Effect of Sunspots on RFT Transmission

Steve was aware of the effect of sunspots on RF transmission and was eager to have his radio listen to transmissions from the other side of the world. Is there anyone in our generation who fits this description? And are we losers because we don’t know? Most emphatically not.

Would the next generation Perceive MOV AX, BX

Similarly, one sees that no one from the next generation would understand MOV AX, BX; it might be a joke for him that audio tapes (which he hasn’t seen) could carry analog audio songs and BASIC code for my favorite Commodore-64 game, ‘Starcatcher.’ It is also impossible to fill a 30 Megabyte hard disc. Is this the generation of i-devices? Will they be able to handle IT in the same way that we have?

 

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