I’m watching the excellent video at All Things Digital from the D5 conference with Steve Jobs from Apple and Microsoft’s Bill Gates on stage together for the first time in years. Geeks will love this interview. After the first part, what plays? A Google ad! Priceless.

Some other noteworthy moments (sorry, no Google permalinks capability)
- Jobs cuts off Gates and audience laughs (part 1)
- a funny quote remembered by Jobs coming from former Apple CEO Gil Amelio: “Apple … is like a ship with a hole in the bottom leaking water. And my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.” (end of part 1)
- Bill Gates explaining how the Xbox 360 was using a processor path that Apple was going away from and why both decisions made sense. Watch the look on Steve Jobs face. He looks like he is going to jump out of his jeans and Gates quip: “Steve is so known for his restraint.” Jobs smiles widely (part 2, 6:05)
- Jobs says he has regrets for Apple but he doesn’t want to look back, he wants to look forward. “Let’s go invent tomorrow.” (part 3, 1:45)
- more five year predictions from Gates, remember he doesn’t have a stellar prediction record, but he thinks we’ll have more than one device we’re carrying around. Ouch, I would like to have one device that does what I need. When will we solve that? (part 3, 11:00)
- of interest to Steve Jobs happening now include how to navigate to life more easily (part 4, 4:20) and he believes we’ll see more productivity enhancements going forward
- “We’re not great at search so we try to partner with people who are great at search.” - Steve Jobs (part 4, 7:10). Jobs indicates that Apple isn’t trying to be the best at everything. Gates says they are “niche areas” where Microsoft doesn’t want to enter. Jobs closes the part 4 video with: “It’s really hard for one company to do everything.”
- Walt Mossberg: “Bill discusses all his secret plans, you [Steve Jobs] discuss none of them” which prompts Jobs to reply: “I know, it’s not fair.” (part 5, 9:30)
- Steve Jobs joking of relationship with Bill Gates: “We’ve kept our relationship secret for 10 years now.” (part 6, :40)
- well deserved standing ovation from the crowd in part 6, 3:36. It’s clear from this video that the public “battle” is really more media hype than reality. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs genuinely like each other and they’ve worked together on more things than apart over the years.

Part 7 - audience questions
I strongly encourage readers to watch the entire interview, perhaps over lunch, it’s one of the best tech interview videos I’ve ever seen. Good questions from the hosts, great answers from Gates and Jobs. While I could have included every video in this post for convenience, I’m going to embed part 7 which made up the audience questions. There are some really good ones in there and I think this is the era we are in now with blogging, social networks and the like: audience participation.

Seeing a complete interview like this at a conference the day after it aired is something that would not have happened 10, maybe not even 5 years ago.

Think I’m going to miss Bill Gates being the day to day guy at Microsoft when he retires. I’m sure he’ll go on to do great things in his role as philanthropist. I’m sure Microsoft isn’t going to fall apart with Gates in a lesser role, definitely not with the billions they have in the bank and the commanding OEM market penetration with Windows, but their other bread and butter: Office, is taking on water.

Google has laser focused on an area where Microsoft and Apple haven’t concentrated on enough. This could usher GoogleOS into being the true third option for consumers. I don’t think the path will lead through the modern day browser (perhaps a next generation browser?), but that appears to be at least the starting point. Don’t say Linux because Linux despite being great for servers (98% of the websites our company operates are on Linux server) just doesn’t have the sexiness of a Mac or the widespread adoption of Windows. Maybe some version of Linux will overcome this and break through and lord knows there are plenty of very good Linux GUIs. I guess the Mac is already essentially that stylistic front end and look how much market share it’s captured.

As for Jobs and Apple? I’m still not convinced the iPhone is going to be anywhere close to the success of the iPod and I don’t need to see one in the stores to predict that. It’s possible that Apple will continue to develop on the concept like Microsoft is promising to do with the Zune and in a few more iterations we’ll see the iPhone be a more compelling option for consumers.

And finally, the Mac. I’ve been a Mac user now since 2004. In my own experience the Mac brings something good to the table but hasn’t done enough to drag me away from Windows yet. In October it will be three years and I’m still doing most of my day to day work on Windows machines. It hasn’t been for a lack of trying, that’s for sure. I do understand better why Mac users are so passionate. It’s a great machine for creative people. I’m a creative person and yet I can’t seem to shake my Windows fix for using the Mac regularly. I’m still trying, believe me.

Here’s what we do know about five years from now: Bill Gates will be in a different role than he is in now and Steve Jobs? Don’t know. The Google honeymoon will be over. It’s already over really, and they are trying to extend the tentacles (Google Gears, deals to get their software packaged into new computers by default, etc) beyond search. If they lose sight of the ball (search) and spend too much time trying to eat competitor lunches, that will expose them to smaller, more nimble companies like they once were.

This video in a way feels like the end of an era for computing and the dawn of a new era. I’m really excited to see where things go over the next 30 years, health willing.

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• Laporte and Dvorak discuss dual boot Apple / Windows future
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• Dropping out of college forced innovation, says Steve Jobs
• Going virtually postal over Bill Gates email box
• Steve Jobs bets on Y! Music raising prices in five months