Is it really a surprise that Gates & Jobs are courteous and respectful?

Did people really expect Jobs and Gates to have a cat fight on stage? Is it really surprising that Jobs and Gates were courteous and geniunely respectful of each other? And do people really believe that strong competition between firms breeds personal contempt? How weird.

NYT:

However, attendees who came hoping for fireworks or a confrontation were disappointed

CBS News:

Some people expected fireworks at this historic meeting which took place Wednesday night at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital Conference in Carlsbad, California, but it was more of a love fest.

Merc:

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs talked about their shared history and gave their views on what’s ahead for the technology industry in an appearance that was low on fireworks

Oregonian:

The audience was expecting daggers, but it got roses instead

Did everyone really expect an all-out Kramer-like meltdown? Honestly, who is it exactly that expected a confrontation? TMZ.com?

Time for Symantec to adopt new model and challenge Microsoft

Looking from the outside, given corporate hesitation towards adopting Vista and strong demand for XP, it seems like Symantec should focus on supporting XP for the long-term – say 5 years. After all, XP has shown itself to be stable and Symantec has spent considerable time and resources on securing XP. At this point, even if Microsoft obsolesces XP support, Symantec can distribute patches and protect against attacks. The current business model is not sustainable against Microsoft – there is little differentiation and sooner or later OneCare will eat into Symantec’s bread and butter security and related enterprise services.

It will be interesting to follow Symantec and observe if they adoptTomorrowNow’s business model to blunt Microsoft’s attack or just continue their downward slide.

Update: Just in time to support my thesis. Slashdot:

a report from CRN concludes that Vista offers little in the way of security advancements over Windows XP.

Portfolio reviews Surface

Say what:

The device starts at a list price of $5,000 but can quickly climb to $10,000 or more. It’s not hard to imagine the price coming down as the Surface enters the retail market and, like most innovations, it will become physically smaller as it evolves.

How do you shrink 5 cameras and the massive computing requirements to recognize hand movements/gestures?

Microsoft patent threat to iPhone

Alexander Wolfe on a new Microsoft patent:

A graphical user interface for a web telephone and other telephony devices provides a unique combination of display elements that provide information and enable the user to access functionality of the device.

Given Microsoft’s history of litigation, if I were Steve Jobs, I would pick up my iPhone and call my lawyer.

What a ridiculous claim. Microsoft would never consider a patent litigation against Apple. For one thing it would be suicidal because Apple’s portfolio is smidge stronger than Microsoft’s. In any case, I am unaware of Microsoft aggressively pursuing intellectual property violations against other firms. Microsoft (and Apple), for the most part, treat IP as defensive measures against patent trolls.

While I am it, I might as well address this comment from the article:

The elephant in this room is that Microsoft apparently thought of something before Apple did. Where’s your “The IPhone is completely innovative and Microsoft never innovates” argument now, Apple lemmings?

Bruce B, the iPhone does not resemble any Microsoft product (mobile or otherwise) out there. Also, there is no mention of multi-touch anywhere in that patent. This patent is basically an extension of Microsoft’s desktop GUI API to the mobile space, its nothing new or particularly “innovative”. Thank you for being a proud Microsoft apologist.

Did I miss an entire web iteration?

Headline in today’s Merc: