eclecticism

February 2nd, 2007 |

Bill Gates, in an interview with Steven Levy for Newsweek:

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 the Windows machine.

There’s a few other doozy quotes in there as well, but that’s the one that really got my attention.

More under the jump…

When somebody comes to us [after discovering a vulnerability] we’ve got [a fix] before there is any exploit. So it’s totally according to plan, and that’s why we have the whole Windows Update thing. We made it way harder for guys to do exploits. The number [of violations] will be way less because we’ve done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn’t done any of those things.

Regarding the need for many PCs to upgrade to run Vista, which Apple is poking fun at in recent commercials:

And 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.

Regarding interface similarities between Mac OS X and Vista (and, historically, the Mac OS and Windows):

You can go through and look at who showed any of these things first, if you care about the facts. If you just want to say, “Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,” that’s fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. […] 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?

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4 Responses to “Throwing down the gauntlet…”

astrocoz Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm

I guess he thinks that Bill Gates invented the world, and then the rest of us came along.

About the Windows Update…that’s their major system exploit that hackers use 10 million times over. Not only that, but they use it to disable every unregistered piece of software on your system.

Since I have had my Mac…going on 2 years now, I’ve never had a problem with intrusion, viruses, etc. However, 2 months with my PC and my entire system needed a major overhaul…and that was with the top of the line Windows Antivirus and Intrusion Detection software. I’m just saying….I remember spending hours every month or so, cleaning up my computer just so I could do my day to day work on it. Precious hours saved with a Mac….millions?

I guess cool guys like Bill Gates can make up lies all the time and just go with it.

Tim Who? Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 7:50 am

I had nothing but problems with my PC so I moved over to MACs. To be honest I have had a re-occurring problem with the MAC. Upon boot up sometimes the monitor doesn’t come on and I need to restart. My solution was to stop shutting down the MAC and just put it in sleep mode at night.(problem solved) The PC on the other hand had so many problems that required outside assistance that I simply gave up on it.

Mr Gates please note.

I wasn’t enticed to move to MAC by slick advertising or the need to feel “cool”. No sir I was a dedicated PC user that was FORCED to switch to a computer that cost three times as much because every-time I did an upgrade half my equipment wouldn’t work. Every time I did an update it took me a week to get the damn thing running again. No sir, Apple didn’t ask me to come over, you forced me to leave.

And I’m sorry sir but now that I’ve been with Apple for a few years I see no reason to come back.

ad hoc Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 1:20 pm

I agree with ‘Tim who?’. Considering the problems I’ve had using windows through the years (I’ve been using windows at work since -93), it’s no wonder people are looking to other OS:es. I switched to a MacOS/FreeBSD configuration (at home) 3 years ago and I have no regrets leaving. The only problem with not using windows is that I don’t do much gaming nowadays (not that I miss it that much

Bryan Says:
February 12th, 2007 at 6:28 am

billg has a point in the last quote above, in that Apple didn’t invent the look-and-feel we all know. But then, neither did Microsoft. Both companies stole the idea from Xerox PARC.

I should point out that if you’re not happy with Windows, you can switch to Linux (or one of the BSDs, if you like) without buying a new anything. It runs on the same hardware as Windows (and OS/X!) without all the viruses and stupid security holes.