It was supposed to be the highlight of the D-All Things Digital conference. The two icons of the computer age, on stage together.
As it turned out, it was primarily two middle-aged men reminiscing about old times. Steve Jobs of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Bill Gates of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) have long competed for the big money in the electronics world of the last 25 years. Jobs had the Mac and the iPod. Gates had Windows and owned the PC universe. Apple has the hot hand now and Microsoft is struggling outside its core OS business.
Both men agreed that online web applications would not take the place of operating systems and other critical features which are downloaded onto computers. But, as the inventors of Windows and Apple Leopard, it would only be natural to take that view.
As Jobs said during the conversation: "You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead." And that was probably the high point of the evening.
Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.
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