Despite all I could do, I could not turn this into a Monty Python moment. Lord knows I tried. Fact is, this is just another sad turn in the strange and legendary story of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the two computer giants of Silicon Valley.
Mr. Gates, now to be called Sir Gates, built his monopoly largely upon the genius and hard work of Mr. Jobs, stealing both the look and feel of the Mac OS for his Windows OS, and most of the computer market share over the past few decades. I am not blowing smoke here. These things are well known have been hashed over in the media and in commentary for the many years that they have been going on.
If that were not bad enough, now Mr. Gates has been knighted for his efforts in gifting a small portion of his undeserved wealth to charity.
I wonder if history will be so kind to him as the Queen has been?
Perhaps decades from now people will come to see the great benefit Mr. Jobs has bestowed on the human race with his empowering and liberating computers and operating systems. Thousands if not millions of creative and artistic people will attest to this fact. I think no invention in all of human history has enabled and empowered people as these Apple computers have done, and all of us benefit from the art and the work produced on these personal computers.
For no matter how rich Mr. Gates is, or how much market share his products have, no one will ever think of Windows as empowering or liberating to anyone.
I think history instead will recall Microsoft products as the most anti-productive, frustrating, vulnerable, and time consuming obstacle ever known to the advancement of the American economy. Other countries are already waking up to this fact, and are abandoning the MS OS and Office Suites for more productive and secure software.
Enjoy your knighthood, Mr. Gates. Just remember, we know there are black knights too.
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