I’ve just finished ploughing through another batch of correspondence from people whose Windows machines have been hijacked by premium-rate diallers, so of course coming across an article entitled “Gates sees security as an asset” was bound to raise a wry smile.
What Bill means is that by concentrating on security, Microsoft might turn it into something it could sell to you, or your company. (Umm, isn’t this a bit like selling people an extra that you should have included in the first place?)
Interesting too to note his increasingly-familiar whinge, which also cropped up in a BusinessWeek interview earlier this year, about the trouble with software: “One challenge in the software business model is that once you license a piece of software, it never wears out,” Gates said. (In the BW interview, he said “This is not a soft drink where you get thirsty and say: “I drank my word processor, let’s have another.”)
Ah, the intractability of software, and customers. Reminds me of the very end of August 1995, when Bill was doing the Windows95 roadshow. He came to London and I got to go behind the curtain as he did a bizarre teach-in, where he showed Jonathan Ross (then a well-known talkshow host, as opposed to now when he’s a.. well, anyway), Carol Vorderman, David Gower, Angela Rippon, and David Emanuel (you know - designed Princess Diana’s wedding dress) how to use the software that was the greatest thing since, oh, Word 1 or something.
Ross was great back then too. He mostly ignored what Bill was trying to teach them, and IM’d Carol Vorderman: “How about after the demonstration, you and me go out and get a tattoo together?” Sadly, she declined*. And to Bill: “Would you want to see ‘Bill Gates The Movie’ with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing you?”
Bill didn’t pause for breath. “No.” Didn’t crack a smile either. “Now on the Start menu…”
I asked Bill (here I was, three months into the job): “How come software hasn’t got better? I mean, it has more features, but it runs slower, takes up more space. Why isn’t it more efficient?” Bill didn’t much like this question (I’ve never asked him one he did like; like most hacks, my questions tend to be at cross-purposes to what he’s thinking about, and he doesn’t really engage with them). “Software’s got better, it’s improved ENORMOUSLY,” he spluttered.
Afterwards Jonathan Ross confided to me: “I know what you meant, you know, with that question.” Then he stood back. “I’m quite interested in computers. I’ve used Apple Macs for ten years. But today is something to tell my friends about - ‘I saw Bill, yeah, that Bill, the other day, told him a few things he’s got fundamentally wrong, you know….’”
Pause. “He’s not nearly as nerdy as I expected, you know.” Bill by this time being safely out of earshot.
Then again, I think a rematch would be fun. Wonder if Bill will be swinging past London any time soon? Wossy’s people should book him. Bill Gates on the Jonathan Ross show - Radio 2 or BBC1, don’t care, it’d be an epoch-making event.
* For American readers, if you want to know who Wossy is, try this link for a few facts, though that doesn’t begin to catch his quickfire wit. Interesting fact: when he offered Carol V that tattoo, he wasn’t married, and she was between hubbies. How different history might have been… “Welcome to… Friday Night Countdown!”
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