Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs: how and why did the fight between Microsoft and Apple start?

when we think of computers nowadays, we usually refer to a PC and, when doing so, we most likely imagine it with some version of Windows installed. Although Manzana has achieved a strong notoriety in the last two decades, there was a time when the advantage of those of Microsoft and of the own Bill Gates it was much more pronounced. What would you say if we told you that this could not be the case and that it was because of those whims of fate?

You may know that, just as there is a strong current rivalry between Google and Apple (for the mobile phone market), something similar happened at some point with computers, precisely desktop ones, which represented a revolution both technological and Social.

The life of the entire world changed when these machines became a common piece in millions of offices and homes, but beyond representing a third technological revolution, computers also created empires, and the candidates to seize this ‘gold mine’ did not they would be few. The winner is known to all: microsoft but how did they achieve it and who did they have to face?

This is where we can remember one of the most anecdotal, special and important rivalries of Western culture in the 20th century, one that traced the destiny of millions of users based on concise facts, arbitrary decisions and even coincidences. The competition between Microsoft and Apple is more complex than is believed and here we will explain to you why it was this that formed the PC industry as we know it today.

Computers had already been an object of fascination since the end of World War II. In the United States, thousands of computer science students and technology enthusiasts eagerly awaited the next great milestone in this industry that held something mystical beyond circuits and technical applications.

When Popular Electronics magazine featured the Altair 8800 on one of its 1975 covers, the revolution began. It was the first microcomputer designed for enthusiasts, curious users and even companies that wanted to use it just for the novelty.

Quickly, the market revealed itself to the astonished gaze of millions of fans, skeptical companies and opportunists with an insider’s view. Two of this last group—and without a doubt the most important—were Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Jobs founded Apple together with his friend Wozniak, with whom he formed a perfect combination of mystique and technology, panache and functionality, art and science. The entrepreneur who died in 2011 was directly responsible for many of the directions that the field of personal computing would take in the span of 30 years. For his part, Bill Gates was more of an opportunistic genius who knew the shortcomings and gaps that could be generated by the irruption of computers in a society so unaccustomed to them, and he was willing to take advantage of them.

All of this was revealed at two key moments in history: the launch and popularity of the Apple II (1997), and the launch and relative failure of the Macintosh (1984).

When Apple launched its first mass-produced personal computer, the success that greeted them was so great that Jobs became an overnight billionaire. Gates knew that the Apple II was the entry ticket for his company, Microsoft, the one he had founded after resigning from Harvard, to be recognized in his philosophy: to be a company solely of software and not of hardware.

Microsoft collaborated with Apple II to create a chip that would allow the old machine to run the popular and simple BASIC programming language. This allowed both companies to establish a relationship that would last for years before entering murky waters.

Steve Jobs had a strong fixation against IBM, which he considered an oppressive company and contrary to all the values ​​that the personal computer market should have. When IBM entered the personal computer business—and became a major competitor to Apple—with the release of its IBM PC, Jobs’s obsession increased. Bill Gates, for his part, continued to seize the opportunity and sold IBM his well-known DOS operating system which made Microsoft a multi-billion dollar company (thanks to the success of the IBM PC).

In 1979, Steve Jobs visited the research center of Xerox in Palo Alto (Xerox PARC), where he was introduced to various novelties that would later take place in the industry: object-oriented programming, network systems and what would be the great revolution of the 80s and 90s: the graphical user interface, that is, the concept of using a mouse to control computers, with windows, icons, double clicks and more.

Jobs implemented these concepts in subsequent Apple products, including the Lisa (named after his then-unrecognized daughter), which was a commercial failure, and then the Macintosh, which he pinned all his hopes on. ‘dethrone IBM’.

Still, even though Jobs had almost exclusive access to Xerox PARC, the newness of the graphical interface, windows and the mouse had already reached Gates thanks to the Lisa (and probably before). It was here that one of the most important events in the history of computing occurred. Bill offered Steve the possibility of having Microsoft develop programs for the Macintosh, with the intention of obtaining a prototype of the machine. Jobs, though hesitant, agreed.

Years later, on the eve of the launch of the Macintosh, Steve Jobs discovered that Bill Gates and Microsoft had developed their own graphical interface called Windows, and that it had already been introduced in Japan, prior to the announcement of the Macintosh. Disappointing but without possibility of any claim, Jobs rebuked Gates and accused him of having stolen the idea, but the owner of Microsoft reminded him that he had done the same with Xerox.

Jobs was fired from his own company when he insisted on lowering the price of the Macintosh—which had been a commercial failure. Years later, Microsoft improved Windows and forged a strong spontaneous alliance with Intel when the latter launched its x86 architecture processors in the late 1980s. The dominance of both in the market was such that Apple itself allied itself with its nemesis IBM and Motorola to create the PowerPC another family of processors to compete against the Windows + Intel combo (also known as ‘Wintel’ computers).

When the 90s arrived, Microsoft’s success was consolidated with the release of Windows 3.1 and then with Windows 95, which positioned the family of operating systems as the most widely used in the world (something that continues to this day). For its part, Apple was about to go bankrupt and in the midst of a generational change of its own system (MacOS), they decided to start from scratch and buy an OS to the highest bidder.

That highest bidder was none other than NeXT the company that Steve Jobs founded in 1985 after his abrupt departure from Apple. The company was purchased outright and Jobs was appointed to return to the company he had founded as interim CEO. In addition, the NeXTSTEP operating system was modified to create the first version of Mac OS X, still present on Apple computers.

Once back in control, and seeing the delicate financial situation of Apple, Steve Jobs asked for help from the least expected person: Bill Gates. In this way, the apple company received strong financing from Microsoft that allowed it to survive and stay afloat.

The rest is history. Apple once again positioned itself as a serious competitor in the computer and laptop market and soon extended its innovative spirit to other industries such as the record company (iPod), mobile phones (iPhone), etc.

Even after the death of Steve Jobs in 2011 and the departure of Gates as chairman of the board of Microsoft in 2014, we can still say that the relationship between these two exceptional individuals is the one that best defines the competition between microsoft and apple and the one that has shaped, for the most part, the personal computer industry to this day.

Source-larepublica.pe