Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: D5 Conference, Part 2

The traditional D5 conference in the California town of Carlsbad, 30 miles from San Diego, as usual, gathered leaders from leading high-tech companies. On May 30, conference organizers Cara Swisher and Walt Mossberg conducted a historic interview in which top executives from Microsoft and Apple - Bill Gates and Steve Jobs - participated.
This is the second part of the interview, the first part is read here.

	Yes, I would say that now is a beneficial period. Understanding how the new device standards look like, what the natural interface can do, the ability to use online software (the word “cloud” is used to refer to online services with software functionality), the Internet, the ability to perform actions independently from the location. There are a huge number of start-ups and existing companies conducting research in this area, in the future we will look at all this as one of the greatest inventive periods.
	I think so too. You know, a lot is risky right now, which has always been a good sign, and you can look ahead, you can look at the other side and go, yes, it can be great, but there is a risk that, you know, no one else did.
	Do you have an example?
	Yes, but I can not say.
	Good.
	But I can say that when you feel it, it's cool!
	For sure.
	This is what makes you come to work in the morning, and it tells you that there is something amazing around the bend.
	Good. So you two have it; you are connected to the Internet every day, you have products for the Internet, you have a huge amount of everything on the Internet, you have iTunes and .Mac and all that, you represent a fat client, a personal computer, as well as a large operating system and everything in that spirit. And there is an opinion, and I am sure that some of those present here also think so, that this all turns into online software and you will need to create quite good hardware that will not need such investments — everything that you guys have been doing for your whole career. I mean, the more people can think of you as rivals, you can also think of you guys as two ...
	Dinosaurs?
	BUT?
	What are we - dinosaurs?
	Dinosaurs? Well, so be it. I can talk about it. No seriously.
	You bet on what changes.
	In five years, will the PC be at the head of all this?
	Well, we can say that they will predict that they will not. You know, network computers went through it, let it be 5 years ago, we disappeared. Remember monofunctional computers? Someone said that all these universal computers are a stupid idea.
	Larry Ellison.
	The main direction of travel is always under attack. What people do not understand is that they will get rich local functionality, I mean, we put on it; Despite the fact that you also get more natural devices in addition to speech and vision, it is solely a matter of combining local functionality with the functionality that surrounds us. The moment you look at a device, say, that connects to a TV or car, there are much more lightweight devices to interact with the Internet, but when you sit in front of a full-screen device, say, to edit a document or create something, you know it seems to me that we are closer than ever to making it much more convenient.
	I will give you a specific example. I love Google Maps, I use it on a computer, you know, in a browser. But when we created the iPhone, we thought: “Wouldn't it be great if you make cards on the iPhone?”. And we contacted Google, and they made several clients for Java phones, and they had an API, on which we also worked a little bit. And we finished writing an application that would work with this API. And they will provide the final service. And the application that we wrote, given the fact that for us it is very important, overshadows any application for Google Maps. This is how it is. The same information comes from the server, but what you get is unbelievable. It is much better than for a computer and from a completely different opera compared to what they previously provided for phones. And, you know, this is the result of using a large number of technologies in the application. Therefore, when we show it to people, it blows down the tower to them by how well this app is. And in the browser you do not succeed. Therefore, people are trying to understand how to be able to do more in the browser, how to get the opportunity to continue working when you fly out of the Internet, how to use such applications in general, so that work continues, regardless of the connection. But all this is happening very slowly, and there is still a lot that can be done with functionally rich applications. At the same time, hardware is progressing so that you can use applications on, every time, more and less expensive, and, every time, less and less energy-intensive devices. And therefore there are interesting things that can be done with the help of customers.
	Good. That is, you say that applications still mean something, but maybe I misunderstood you, but you are talking about a client who is not a personal computer, in any case, as we present it today.
	I say that the crossing of really great applications and great services is very strong, and now it can be much stronger than just using a browser.
	So you say that being a software company and a service company, unlike ...
	I say that these services plus a more sophisticated application is very powerful.
	Bill?
	Yes, from the point of view of architecture, the question is the following - you only use online software and everything you downloaded is a browser? And the same question about the phone, because This is a full-screen device. There will always be different screen sizes, since there exists, say, a 5 ”screen, which cannot be compared at all with a 20” screen, as well as with a huge screen that hangs in the living room. These things, beyond their limits, will be computed, all connected to the Internet, but the idea that you get a local response instantly regardless of delays and connection limitations, what you get when you use it and the fact that it all happens out of your sight, This is what leads to real balance.
	What will the device look like in 5 years? What will be your main device? Is there such or ...
	I could be wrong, but you have a “tablet” with you (approx. Transl. - means tablet PC), right?
	So.
	Which is not a fact that has already appeared in the world.
	Yeah. Something like Windows 1992, I think ...
	All right, but let's go back to Kara's question; how do you imagine your future assistant, say, in order to go online and ...
	I mean, Jeff Hokkins showed a very lightweight device today.
	Yes. I don’t know if you saw him, guys, but Jeff showed today based on Linux and very small, in my opinion, he called it a companion for a smartphone.
	A telephone companion that sounds like a joke.
	No matter, you were not here, but what would you think if you were; Here you have a "pill". I do not know which manufacturer. Maybe you change them like gloves, I don't know. You, I dare suggest, most likely, MacBook Pro or MacBook.
	Yeah, well, the iPhone.
	And the iPhone?
	Do you have with you?
	With myself.
	Right here?
	Yes.
	Well yes. He already got it. Seriously.
	Sorry.
	He's here today boasted about his iPhone.
	In any case, we continue. What is your device? What device will we carry with us?
	On which device do you bet the biggest stakes in a five-year term?
	I do not think that the device will be one. I think there will be a full-screen device that you can carry with you, and you will receive an impressively large amount of information from it.
	Lung.
	Yes, I mean that I believe in the format of "pills". I think there will be a sound, there will be a color. You will have the opportunity to use the keyboard and its settings. And then there will be a device that fits in your pocket, which will show how much there can fit, well, you understand, and you have a navigation computer, and you multimedia, and a phone. Technology allows us to push more there, but then again, you want to improve it so that people get what they expect. Therefore, the process of creating handheld devices is a bit of an experiment. But it seems to me that these are natural sizes, and we are waiting for the evolution of portable devices. And the evolution of phones will be constant, for example, if you have a phone, you really want another one.
	Will there be a device at home to connect all this together?
	Well, at home, at home you will have a living room, which will be a three-meter space connected to the Internet, and there you will be able to play and have fun, and you can experiment a lot on how the content will look in this world. And then at your home will be the same as at work on the table. You know, it seems to us that every horizontal and vertical surface will have a projector, so that you can “put” information, your table can become a surface for which you sit down and can control objects.
	Can I have a room in the house in which there will be no screen and a projector?
	Yes please.
	Thank.
	Bathroom.
	Wonderful…
	In fact - a great place for all this.
	So what is your view on the future device that you will carry with you?
	You know, this is interesting. The PC has proven to be very tenacious, as Bill said earlier, his death is foreshadowed every few years.
	Right now, when you speak PC, do you mean PC in general, or specifically PC with Windows?
	I mean PC, in general.
	Yes OK.
	There was a time of productivity, if you recall - tables and text editors, and this shifted the industry. And everything stabilized for a while, and a slight stagnation began, and then the Internet appeared, and everyone needed more powerful computers to access the Internet, then browsers came, and the time came for the Internet, Internet access. Then, a few years ago, everyone began to look at the PC as something commonplace, and some stagnation began, at least in terms of innovation. And then this whole PC ideology, which we called the digital hub, but you can call it whatever you like, even though the home multimedia center has become overgrown with digital cameras and digital video cameras, sharing everything over the Internet, and the need for storage for all of this, and all reborn as a hub of your digital life. And, as you can see, it all starts again. It is not yet clear what it is, but it will be a PC, perhaps more closely associated with any Internet services and something like that. And, of course, PCs become mobile very quickly. So I think the PCs will remain. This universal device will continue to exist with us and change with us, whether it is a “tablet”, or a laptop, or, you know, a large curved desktop computer that is in your home, or something like that. Therefore, it seems to me that this will be what most people will have, at least in our society. In others, it can - and not, but in this - for sure! And then there is a surge in what you call a post-PC device, right? You can think of an iPod as one of those devices. There are many things that are not.
	I want you to know that you may be in trouble due to the use of this notation.
	What?
	Just kidding Post-PC device.
	Why?
	People write complaints to the editor on this topic. No matter, go ahead.
	Good. In any case, I think there is a certain category of devices that are not universal, which are focused on more specific tasks, whether it is a phone, an iPod, or Zune, or anything else. And I think that products of this category will be more and more innovative, and we will see many more such devices.
	Give me an example of what it can be.
	Let's say iPod as post-pc.
	Good.
	The phone is like a post-pc device.
	iPhone and some other smartphones, and I know that you consider it better than other smartphones at the moment, all these things, are they not really just computers of a different standard? I mean, when we say a phone, it sounds like ...
	Here we come to the fact that everything is just computers of another standard. So what, right? What is it that he is with a computer inside? It does not matter. So what's the problem? In how you use it? How does the consumer treat him? Well, who cares what's inside?
	So what are the main functions of the device, previously known as a mobile phone, no matter what we want to call it? Handheld device. What main functions, say, in five years, will this pocket device have?
	How quickly everything that was highly specialized: a navigation device, a digital wallet, a phone, a camera, a video camera, how quickly all of this will become one, is difficult to imagine. But in the end, you will have the opportunity to choose what will have all the capabilities of these devices. And still, due to the small size, you will not have a desire to do homework or edit video on a device of this size. And therefore you will have something that will allow you to read, edit anything and so on. And, if we ever can make a screen that can be turned into a tube, then you will have a device that can do everything.
	You know, at the very first conference we had the guys from E-Ink here.
	For sure.
	I am sure you both communicated with them. They talked about it. That was five years ago. All the time, five years. So you…
	Yes. There is some advancement in the projection technology, and it seems to me that there is more potential than the flexible material of these guys, but this is not even on the horizon, no matter which of these technologies would be considered.
	And as for quality.
	We at Microsoft have a few people who are doing research in this area, and we put a lot of money into it, but it still works no sooner than in five years.
	What do you say, in five years, what will be on this pocket device?
	I do not know. And all because I did not think five years ago that there would be maps on such a device, but something changes, it becomes very popular, people like it, they get used to it and want it to appear on the device. People are constantly inventing something, and it seems to me that the art is to be able to properly balance what is present on the device and what is not. It is clear that all these devices that you carry with you are for communication. Of course, you want entertainment, but first of all they are for communication, and that is how they will be.
	Beyond computer-related topics, what other areas exist on the Internet that are interesting for your companies and for you personally? Any social networks, Vicky, in general, any of what we talked about today?
	You know, we are working on some, but I can't talk about it, but ...
	Again.
	Yeah, again.
	I think this is great.
	There was such a statement, not in Apple ...
	We are planning to “break the tower” when we can talk about it.
	Exactly, it will be wonderful.
	There was such a statement in Apple, is not it funny: "The ship that gives flow on the bridge." Therefore…
	It reminds me: a sleeveless sweater is a vest. I do not understand.
	They said that about me when I was not yet 30.
	Clear.
	A lot of interesting things happen on the Internet. And the most interesting for me are new services that people invent, and ...
	Recreational ...
	A lot of them are entertaining, but among them there are also many other services that are just trying to improve life. And I think it's great when you show something to someone, and you don't have to convince him that he has a problem that solves it. They know that they have a problem, you can show them something, they fit and, oh my god, I need it. And I think you will see a lot of this in the next year or two.
	You have a wonderful online business through iTunes, and you sell a lot of things through the Apple Store, but previously you had the idea that when a person buys a computer from Apple, he also receives an Internet service called Mac. And it seems to me that many people will say that here you have achieved little.
	I can not disagree with you, but in the near future we will catch up.
	And in your case, the user has a lot of things, for example, Hotmail and Windows Messenger, which, I think, are used by a huge number of people, and I can’t even imagine how many of them there are.
	A myriad of.
	The numbers are huge. But on the other hand, as Steve Ballmer said today, other people have very strong positions in search and other areas of the Internet. You guys are not as agile in this area as other participants are, because your companies are connected to PCs, and you work best in this area? Are you both worried about not being so agile? I mean, it's clear that Microsoft has a lot more, but you have Steve, also a big company - Apple. Are you worried about someone sitting there so more agile and he has young employees like you had in 1977?
	Well, there will always be something new and interesting that will come from other companies, and you want to be ready to benefit from it, want it to attract users to Windows and PC, and then all these streaming services that you want participate. I hope Steve mentioned that we plan to participate in search services, in a better performance than now.
	Yes, he talked about it.
	Well, here we will see what we can do in this area. Many services are highly specialized, so we are unlikely to go there. Imagine what you can become with education, given the fact that video is now streaming, and all functionally rich applications are streaming too. I love it. Thoughts about this stretch from the very beginning of the existence of our industry. That something we dreamed of would be used by students, or that teachers could be better by learning from each other in such new ways. We are on the verge that something from all this can happen. And, yes, our companies can donate it, but, in general, this is an ecosystem that grows and develops at the expense of itself, and in the end, you can say that, after all, technology has done something for education.
	I look at it all a little differently, namely - we are not trying to do much of all this, because This is absolutely not what we do. It seems to us that one company cannot do everything at once. So you have to work with companies that are very good at all of this. For example, we are not, but I mean that maybe Microsoft is very good at finding. And we are not. We are not trying to become cool in the search, so we work with people who are very good at it. And we do not know how to make cards. We know how to make the best card client in the world, but we do not know how to make such a service, so we cooperate with those who know. And what we want to do is provide the user with the device and experience wrapped around all this information, and provide him with a holistic product with a great interface. And therefore, in some cases, we have to do more work than others. As, for example, in the case of iTunes, there was no service for delivering music that would be good enough, and we had to do it. But in other cases, there are companies that deal with such things much better than us, because we are not so good at this, and we are pleased to cooperate with them selectively. And it seems to me that it is very difficult for one company to do all this. Life is a complicated thing.
	Let's talk about entertainment. Entertainment is an important industry for your companies. Your company has music, and now also Apple TV. Microsoft is present in the era of Hollywood. Where do you see the era of YouTube lead? We had a couple of networkers here, talking about the changes taking place in Hollywood and everything else. What is happening with the provision of entertainment, and what exactly are you connected to? You will still be one of the delivery mechanisms for most people, in one way or another.
	Well, the starting point in this case is the Internet, and therefore you provide all its richness and interactivity. I think we can slightly imagine the future of television, if we look at communities such as, for example, Xbox Live, where people communicate with each other, find friends, watch something together and talk about it. If you transform all this into genres, be it educational shows, or sports programs, or watching the Olympic Games, or elections, the ability to navigate becomes very, very strong. And we are not in the entertainment sector. Yes, we create Halo, which is a very serious video game, but mainly we create a platform, and everything depends only on the program, what it is: speech, or color, or beautiful graphics, this is what makes these things happen for 10 years as IPTV, it took 10 years to create it. And now this, in the end, is beginning to bear fruit, and there are companies such as AT & T, for example, that bet on combining such things. Therefore, we are just at the very beginning of creating a machine for large-scale entertainment, mainly through a PC, and, unfortunately, in most cases not connected to TV, but this is the innovation, and now such things as IPTV and Xbox are combined in the living room.
	Bill, you were not present at the same time, but Steve showed Apple TV, which displays video from YouTube directly on the TV. Will there be something of you in the same spirit? Do you see yourself, as Bill said, providing opportunities for entertainment, or would I rather say, put off the role of Disney in favor of the role of Apple?
	I think that people want to enjoy their entertainment the way they want it, and when they want it, and on the device they want. Therefore, in the long run, all this will lead to the fact that entertainment companies will have to resort to different business models. And this is good.I mean, if you're a content company, then that's good. Many people want to enjoy your content more often and in different ways, that's why you keep in business, but the transition