Well Joe what can I say? Is Apple bad for being tight on press releases? Not talking to bloggers? Mhhh, I don't think so.

Lets see. These bloggers are the same ones that got heat for getting hot laptops "to keep" and later "not to keep".

Now I hear Microsoft keeps you and others at Microsoft-Watch well informed of stuff Apple would never reveal until Jobs speaks. As you say "Microsoft is fairly open with analysts, partners and press about its announcements, while Apple keeps everything secret until Jobs' does the unveiling." Are you and the press community jealous?

I'll tell you what I think. I think by the time Jobs says "we have..." it means they really have it. When Microsoft passes "hot news" to you guys it is more to stall the market than to release. I hear "Microsoft will have this..." or "Microsoft is working to release this..." or "The new Microsoft whatever will have these features the competition now boasts...". How much did we hear from you about Longhorn and now Vista before it REALLY came true? What about Explorer? Which now has features Firefox has had for ages. Remember MSNBC? How many times did we hear about it and how many times was it done over and over again? What about the whole Live whatever? Then there is .NET. Which ended up being .NOT what was first said it would be. You guys were all over it with .NET and what has become of it? If I recall well it became a nightmare for Microsoft because after so many press releases nobody really knew what .NET really was!

Did you ever stop to think that Apple has the ... and read this slowly... hability to learn from the competition. That maybe Apple has learned from Microsoft's mistakes?

Let me quote you on your own word from your article

"Definitive, Unsolicited Advice for Microsoft"

On regards of "2. Software services must move at Internet speed.". I totally agree. But what do we get from the press? And all those great outspoken Microsoft folks?? Well something is on the way. I hear great things about Microsoft search. I still use Google though. Am I missing something or is all this really Microsoft press vaporware?

On your point "3. Security by PR no longer works (if it ever did). " you say " It's tough to hide zero-day vulnerabilities behind future security promises." Couldn't have said it better! See what I mean? We hear all this great stuff from Microsoft in blogs, from you guys and just about all over the place. But where is the promised security???

And of course you couldn't have said it better than with point 9. "9. Changing behavior is a poor way to instill confidence. Missed shipped dates, abandoned or changed product strategies and periodic product name changes lead to legitimate questions about who's in charge. Reliability isn't just a feature of products; it's something customers look for in the technology provider. Microsoft must be consistent."

That is exactly what I mean! I don't want Apple on promise land saying they'll get the next wonderful thing out "in the very near future". I like to reload their page and see new things and say wow! Microsoft has been telling you guys to tell us that all these great things are on the way and they get here late, broken and with missing parts.

I don't mean to put Apple in the negative...

O RLY? :)

Gerardo, that is one of the best summaries of the differences I've seen. The press give Gates and Microsoft a bye when they regularly over-promise and under-deliver -- it's almost a given now that anything Microsoft announces will be late to market. The same press then slam Apple for not keeping them "in the loop" as though Apple owes them some special favor. Apple announces products when they are ready - how awful.

As for Wilcox's automobile analogies for the two OSes, he's way off base. The UNIX underpinnings of OS X make it more like a Mac truck (ha ha) than a Miata, but Apple was clever enough to dress it up nicely so non-geeks can use it. On the other hand W2K (and by extension XP = W2K with a GUI shell), is mostly cribbed VMS from DEC, badly patched with spaghetti code and wishful thinking. It has a nice paint job but don't let 'em look under the hood! A whole generation of MCSEs has made a living from its foibles, and that is the true genius of what Gates and Ballmer created.

"Microsoft shouldn't shine, but its partners..."

The notion of a MSFT "partner" brings to mind the royal shafting visited upon the "Plays for Sure" suckers. I'm sure these "partners" all enjoyed MSFT being so open about its plans for Zune. I'm not even going to mention the legions of past "partners" so visited by the monopoly abuser MSFT over the years. You kiddin' us?

Lets see. MS havent delivered a consumer operating system since windows XP - and it was basically adding all the features they couldnt fit into windows 2000. Was it 2001 ?

Does "Vista Reset" mean anything to you?

Apple on the other hand have consistently delivered.

MS's code is subject to weekly security and virus alerts. Apple has not.

MS's Vista Aero interface is finally catching up with Apples Tiger interface. Apple will release Lepoard soon.

Substance ? Show me this MS Substance!

---* Bill

Gerardo, I couldn't have said it better! You are right on the mark. Microsoft and Microsoft "watchers" are mostly about vaporware and delaying tactics and PR manipulation. Too often, Microsoft is short on delivery.

Apple, on the other hand, almost always delivers. And that's a very good thing.

Whoops, appears I've accidentally stumbled into MacWorld?

Yo, Joe...

Microsoft's style and substance is being found guilty on 2 continents (soon to be 3) of criminal behavior and stifling innovation...

Yo, Joe...

Microsoft's style and substance is being found guilty on 2 continents (soon to be 3) of criminal behavior and stifling innovation...

Oh here are all the Apple bloggers not allowed to blog 3 months before Steve takes the stage?, whining "OSX is so secure because... bla bla BSD", ever botherd to count CVE:s? No? well go ahead and do it and then explain to us how Apple still thinks security is a Feature?

Dear ignorants,
Comparing XP to MACs is like comparing apples with oranges. MAC is HOME PC period for home users.XP is client operating system For business us. MAC is nowhere nearly as complex as XP.

Dear ignorants,
Comparing XP to MACs is like comparing apples with oranges. MAC is OS for home users.XP is client operating system for business us. MAC is nowhere nearly as complex as XP.

kalodev, the only ignorance being shown is your own. There are many business running Mac OS and they are enjoying greater stability, lower risks from malware and viruses, and greater productivity - all with lower IT costs. Keep your FUD to yourself, please.

I'd rather have Microsoft's monopoly over Apple which controls the hardware. I don't want a mac mini. I want a PC that I can upgrade that doesn't cost thousands of dollars!!

Also, MacOS X still doesn't have anything like OLE, though there is a similar technology called linkback which is used by a couple of apps such as nisus. Why isn't it part of the OS? Microsoft had it for over 15 years! Even linux has the tech with kpart in KDE or bonobo in Gnome

...and then vista will run slow and crash. mac os/x will then run flawlessly and continue to serve all the home multimedia files as it has been for the past 2+ years.

Mac OSX is just another version of linux.. it had the same flaws in apache samba and smtp. It still lacks the depth of Direct Music (hey im a musician) and WDM kernal streaming drivers (my pc runs < 1 ms latency with multiple audio tracks and synths.. havent seen a mac do that yet.) Ive had so much trouble over the years with Mac midi and graphical drivers.. and stupid stuff like the the mac locking when it comes out of sleep mode. I cant believe ppl still claim macs are more reliable.. they dont live in the real world.

Good car analogy!

Glenn Sweeney (the musician)

We just installed software for over 200 Macs at Walker Ranch (ILM) to handle all of the sound and music editing for all movies and games they are producing. Every studio in Hollywood I've been in use Macs to do sound editing. Most radio stations in the US use Avid Pro Tools on Mac to handle their music and sound. The TV station where I volunteer is exclusively Mac for sound and video editing and streaming (business too, but we are discussing sound). Maybe you just haven't tried a Mac long enough. Also, Mac OS X is definitely not linux. It is true UNIX and there is a difference between the two.

The amount of misrepresentation in this article is astounding. When I read the title, "Gates & Jobs: Substance vs. Style", I figured it must be a typo. Surely it should have read Clown vs Visionary. On further reading of the article I was dismayed to read about Microsoft's openness - are you kidding me?!

Gerardo's rebuttal was a welcome relief from the twilight zone sensation I was getting from Joe's article.

I have both PCs and Macs at home and I find both useful. However, I love my Mac and alternately like my PC and hate it. I used PC's for a couple of decades before buying my first Mac in 2005 and now, I seriously doubt I'll ever buy another PC for personal use.

//begin rant
I am reminded of when Tiger was being released and Gates was busy telling us all about Longhorn, no wait, I guess by then Longhorn had been abandoned. It must have been Vista, could it have been that long ago? Anyhow, while Tiger came with Spotlight, Gates was telling how the 'next' release of Windows would have it's own whiz bang search feature (probably some dog like Yahoo/Google Desktop), Tiger delivered next-gen search capability.

Oh, and have you been paying attention - MS has decided that the Menu is no longer necessary, and to show the 'Substance' of their decision, they have left it up to teams to decide how to implement alternatives - so, ie 7 has one kind of interface whereas other apps have another. I feel a Howard Dean coming on - aaarrrgghhh, very frustrating to hear Gates (and by proxy MS) lauded as innovators - sheesh.

//end of rant

Will

Brad, really? I will just talk about one thing that's pretty clear. OS X security. OS X has had over 66 vulnerabilites (http://secunia.com/product/96) in the last three years. Many of those vulnerability announcements covered multiple holes. Several announcements had over 10 holes, one had over 30 (http://secunia.com/advisories/16449) holes. So the real count is well over a hundred holes in 3 years. Is this your secure OS? And don't even get me started on how OS X handles LUA...

If only OS X had Windows market share.....Same story with Firefox, when they were claimming to have the most secure browser on the planet. Have you counted the number of security vulnerabilities that surfaced ever since they passed the 5% market share? Tell you what. They are more that IE and don't make me come back with numbers...

kalodev,

The number of defects you are quoting is debatable, but even if it was accurate there is more to the story then simply adding up the number of 'holes'. This kind of FUD is lame. Microsoft has a long and revered history of critical issues with its OS that dwarfs Mac OS X's. As for the market share BS, gimme a break. When a problem is found for a *nix tool, the problem is not denied and covered up, it is fixed generally within a matter of hours - compare that to 200+ days of known Microsoft 'holes', last year.

will

kalodev get real. You missed out the most important link MS Windows XP Pro

Vendor Microsoft

Product Link N/A

Affected By 170 Secunia advisories

Unpatched 19% (32 of 170 Secunia advisories)

Most Critical Unpatched
The most severe unpatched Secunia advisory affecting Microsoft Windows XP Professional, with all vendor patches applied, is rated Highly critical

You might notice a 19% of unpached problems and the highest rated (unpached) is Highly Critical. On the other hand OS X has 11% unpatched and only Moderately critical.

Gerardo Tasistro wrote: "I don't want Apple on promise land saying they'll get the next wonderful thing out 'in the very near future'."

Gerardo,

Your well thought out opening comment set the tone for the comment discussion that followed. Thanks.

Q: Now that Apple announced iPhone, six months before it ships, what's your reaction? That's a long time and quite an unusual move for Apple; it's also Microsoft-like.

Thanks,

Joe

There was little choice in unveiling the iPhone six months before it ships, as soon as it went for FCC clearance the cat would've been out of the bag.

Instead, Apple gets to control the tone of the ensuing conversations by announcing it Steve Jobs' way.

The ignorant kalodev wrote:
"Comparing XP to MACs is like comparing apples with oranges. MAC is HOME PC period for home users.XP is client operating system For business us. MAC is nowhere nearly as complex as XP."

Poor ignorant Kalodev is misinformed. While Macs and OS X certainly are less complex than insecure Windows bloatware (thanks for pointing this out), this is what makes them easier to operate and a joy to use. Since Macs also run Windows and Linux applications (as well as Apple's own OS X software), they actually are compatible with far more products than is Windows. Kalodev also needs to learn that Mac OS X-based systems actually are PREFERRED in many types of professions and businesses, including music, audio, film, video, writing, photography, art, design, publishing and printing, typography and science, among many others. Kalodev: please stop making blanket pronouncements about things you know nothing about.

Joe, you said:

Q: Now that Apple announced iPhone, six months before it ships, what's your reaction? That's a long time and quite an unusual move for Apple; it's also Microsoft-like.

Personally I don't see much of an issue. Take a look at the apple.com site and you'll notice Leopard has been sneak peaked longer than that. So it isn't an unusual move for Apple. It would be unusual if in six months time no iPhone actually came out! Now that would be Microsoft-like indeed.

A point I see in the celular arena is contract terms. If my contract with Cingular expires in 3 months I could renew with a new phone. If I see iPhone come along I might hold on a bit. For example Blackberry with Cingular requires a minimum 12 months. Most Cingular contracts are for 2 years.

None the less iPhone still requires FCC aproval (see apple.com). We'll just have to wait and see. If in six months time we don't see an iPhone I guess I'll just have to hand it to you. Guess only time will tell.

Apple have always been more about style rather than substance and unfortunately all the sycophantic zealots, worshipping knees-bent at the church of Jobs are too blind with lust over these so called 'design masterpieces' to notice or even care.

Take the iPod for instance. It lacks the features, diversity and flexibility of many mp3 players but it looks good so people buy it in their droves.

The same applies to OSX. It's for people who don't have the brain power or are too impatient to work out how to use a computer properly but instead just want to pose.

Actually I'm surprised Mac Book Pro's don't come with a mirror attached.