Gates and Jobs Battle it Out in Top 10 Influencers
By chuggyhandbags, 10 November 2007 - 01:55 22 comments
The battles between Microsoft and Apple have hit their CEOs, as the two companies' respective chiefs were named the industry's most influential personalities, top and second, respectively, of the past 25 years, according to a poll by the Computing Technology Industry Association. Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, claimed the top spot on the most influential list, named by 84 percent of the 473 IT industry professionals who participated in the Web-based poll. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976, placed second on the list of most influential IT person of the past 25 years. Jobs was selected by 73 percent of voters.
View: Full Story @ ExtremeTech
Comments (22)
neelj - 10 November 2007 - 02:03
Gates all the way!
MightyJordan - 10 November 2007 - 18:27
+1!
JoeC - 10 November 2007 - 02:32
Hands up who's surprised.
n_K - 10 November 2007 - 10:19
gates is a great influence... hes showed me not to become a rich arse-hole like ****** selling junk that isnt even working properly and is ****ing people off just to beat the competition, and steal deals from other companies like scum
on the other hand, jobs has showed me how to not be an unreliable useless ****tard, releasing LAMEpods that are extremely un-environmentally friendly and have no user serviceable parts.. and realeasing the worlds ****tesy LAMEphone and making it appear like god gift, what a pile of junk, and your a complete mug if you went and got one. Also charging an extraught price for an operating system that needs the very best of hardware to even work with a stupid interface, having all code stolen, yes STOLEN, from linux and not even sharing the profit (which is very very VERY high) with the original *nix developers... ******
Darran - 10 November 2007 - 14:01
Let me get this right, you hate Jobs being the head of a hardware company, and you seem to think that Mac OS X (Full version $129) is more expensive than Windows... Also, you seem to think open source code is stolen, even if the licence says it may be used for commercial purposes... right, yeah, sure.
Gates is clearly a fantastic influence...
LTD - 10 November 2007 - 14:49
You're off your meds again. Must have run out. Get a refill . . . fast!
n_K - 10 November 2007 - 16:14
Gates is clearly a fantastic influence...
no, im saying hes an ******* for not donating anything, lets face it i hate huge companies but at least gates donates money to charities and africa... whats jobs donated to ? oh yeh, the `steve jobs chanity` where 100% of the donations go straight to his bank account
MightyJordan - 10 November 2007 - 18:29
I think he's complaining about the fact that Apple charge consumers for major updates to Mac, whilst Microsoft deliver major updates to Windows for free.
LTD - 10 November 2007 - 19:08
Seriously, I'm worried about this guy . . . or whatever it is . . . .
Someone please put him back in and close the lid.
Darran - 10 November 2007 - 21:47
no, im saying hes an ******* for not donating anything, lets face it i hate huge companies but at least gates donates money to charities and africa... whats jobs donated to ? oh yeh, the `steve jobs chanity` where 100% of the donations go straight to his bank account
Fair point, I'll agree with that, unless you count Ratatouille as 'giving back'.
Darran - 10 November 2007 - 21:49
I think he's complaining about the fact that Apple charge consumers for major updates to Mac, whilst Microsoft deliver major updates to Windows for free.
Apple and Microsoft both charge for major updates for their OSs, Apple just ships incremental upgrades to the same OS that bring it up to the latest spec, while Microsoft try and do something completely new and revolutionary every 3 years, which causes numerous headaches for people. I'm not sure which is the best model, but Apple's seems to be the most interesting and futurist.
rm20010 - 10 November 2007 - 23:30
Other than that eyesore over rambling about Apple's products, you do bring up a point:
According to this article, it seems like Jobs is uninterested in charitable work. He apparently tried starting up his own foundation in the 80s but afterwards gave it up. He may be donating behind the scenes but it does not show in the list created by the Giving USA Foundation. I liked the last paragraph in the article: "Jobs did start a charitable foundation in the 1980s, but gave it up once he "discovered how time-consuming such business can be." I guess starting a hardware/software company, an animation company, and bringing another computer company back from the brink of death can be pretty tiring."
In any case, however amazing he might be to Apple for turning his old company from the industry's laughingstock of the late 90s to an iconic corporation, his attitude seems to affect those who are loyal to his products. Not saying that every single Apple user is smug and pompous, but it's those few *******s (evangelists, flamers... ahem) who paint Apple products as a whole in a negative light.
whocares78 - 12 November 2007 - 02:27
Apple and Microsoft both charge for major updates for their OSs, Apple just ships incremental upgrades to the same OS that bring it up to the latest spec, while Microsoft try and do something completely new and revolutionary every 3 years, which causes numerous headaches for people. I'm not sure which is the best model, but Apple's seems to be the most interesting and futurist.
what drugs are you on, seriously SP's are considered major updates by Windwos Users, minor updates are security fixes adn patches, vista is not an update to XP it's a new OS, XP was not an update to 2000, it was a new OS. MAC OSX Tiger/lepoard etc etc are only really upgrades
LTD - 12 November 2007 - 03:00
what drugs are you on, seriously SP's are considered major updates by Windwos Users, minor updates are security fixes adn patches, vista is not an update to XP it's a new OS, XP was not an update to 2000, it was a new OS. MAC OSX Tiger/lepoard etc etc are only really upgrades
And?? So what?
SniperX - 10 November 2007 - 10:43
Titoist - 10 November 2007 - 12:14
Isnt Steve Ballmer the CEO/Chairman of Microsoft and not Bill Gates?
jas8522 - 10 November 2007 - 13:32
Yes, but only as of recently. This is of the last 25 years!
Slugbait - 12 November 2007 - 04:40
Seven years is not "recently". Ballmer stepped down as President in 2000 to take the role of CEO from Gates, who transitioned to Chief Software Architect. The presidency was moved to RickBe (who lasted almost exactly a year in the position).
Ballmer is not Chairman. Unless Gates dies, he never will be...but even that scenario is not certain.
Axon - 12 November 2007 - 01:27
Hate him or Love him, there's simply no denying that Jobs has a profound influence and impact on the tech industry. iPod, iPhone and OS X are always in the spotlight (forgive the pun).
whocares78 - 12 November 2007 - 02:29
hate him or love him GATES still BEATS JOBS. and once again MS beats Apple