Bill Gates on Vista and Apple's 'Lying' Ads (Mac OS X vs Vista)

[Andy Lee]

On Feb 2, 2007, at 4:55 PM, Matt Penna wrote:
>> BILL GATES: Well, certainly we've done a better job letting you  
>> upgrade on the hardware than our competitors have done. You can  
>> choose to buy a new machine, or you can choose to do an upgrade.
>
> Is the second statement even related to the first? Either it's  
> simply an incomplete train of thought or he doesn't realize you can  
> upgrade Mac OS X. Or Linux. Or anything else.

Sure, if your hardware is too weak for Vista you have the option of  
upgrading the hardware or buying a new machine.  He makes this sound  
like flexibility.  The option he leaves out is sticking with your  
existing hardware, which for a lot of people won't be an option if  
they upgrade if I understand correctly.

>> BILL GATES: So, yes, it took us longer, and they had what we were  
>> doing, user interface-wise. Let’s be realistic, who came up with  
>> [the] file, edit, view, help [menu bar]? Do you want to go back to  
>> the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts  
>> came from?
>
> I've read that a good 5 or 6 times and I still can't figure out  
> exactly what he's trying to say. Perhaps I'm dense. Does anyone  
> even care?

Who *did* invent the File/Edit/etc. menu convention?  Obviously it  
was burned into the Mac long before Windows existed.  But did the  
convention exist in Microsoft text-based programs before the Mac?   
Did it exist at PARC?  The problem is that an uninformed reader could  
assume that Gates is saying Microsoft invented the convention and  
Apple stole it from them.

--Andy