史上50大商业对手：比尔•盖茨vs.史蒂夫•乔布斯

    将比尔•盖茨与史蒂夫•乔布斯进行对比，就如同将白昼与黑夜进行对比一般，但两人也有很多共同之处。这或许能够解释两人竞争的残酷性。而这种矛盾的结果是什么？那就是个人电脑的诞生。

    首先，两人之间的不同之处在于：盖茨来自中上层阶级，读的是哈佛大学（Harvard）。而乔布斯则来自一个中等收入的普通家庭，只在里德学院（Reed College）学习过一段时间。痴迷科技的盖茨自己编写了微软（Microsoft）早期产品的代码。而乔布斯则是天生的营销者，而且拥有足够的本事来说服别人，依靠合伙人史蒂夫•沃兹尼亚克发明了第一台苹果（Apple）电脑。盖茨是全世界极客们的榜样。而乔布斯自始至终都非常平和。盖茨深谙规模与举债经营；乔布斯则掌握了时尚与信息。（更具个人魅力的乔布斯已被搬上大荧幕，电影由诺阿•威利与艾什顿•库彻主演。）在汹涌的计算机革命大潮中，盖茨与史蒂夫成为两个极端的代表人物。

    但最重要的一点是，这两个人对商业都有透彻的理解。对于资产负债表和损益表中的那些把戏，两位并没有接受过正式的培训。实际上，两个人都不是大学毕业，但赚钱的能力却都超出常人，也都精于竞争。

    在竞争的前二十年，盖茨稳居上风。在此期间，Windows成为全球默认的操作系统。后来到了1997年，苹果生死存亡之际，乔布斯还得到过盖茨1.5亿美元的投资。（当时，在宣布交易的Macworld大会上，当盖茨在视频中出现时，引来现场观众的一片嘘声。）但乔布斯在自己离世之前的15年里却扭转了局势，在PC之外的市场占据主导地位，如音乐播放器、智能手机和平板电脑等。而这些领域都是微软投入巨资却基本徒劳无功的项目。（或许是受到这一事实的打击，盖茨的妻子梅琳达禁止孩子们在家里使用iPod和iPhone手机。）

    两人也曾经毫不掩饰地相互指责。乔布斯认为，微软的核心问题是缺少品位。而对于乔布斯最伟大的成就iPad，盖茨的评价只有简单的一句话：“还不错。”

    乔布斯与盖茨年龄上仅相差七个月（乔布斯较为年长），在乔布斯去世之前几年，两人一直保持着友好的关系。做了那么长时间的冤家对头，他们比任何人更清楚对方取得了哪些成就。

    获胜者：史蒂夫•乔布斯（财富中文网）

    Bill Gates and Steve jobs were as different as night and day, yet they had much in common. This probably explains the bitterness of their rivalry. The fruits of their enmity? The creation of the personal computer.

    First, the differences: Gates was an upper-middle-class kid who went to Harvard. Jobs grew up in a family of modest means and didn't attend many classes at Reed College. Deeply technical, Gates wrote the code for Microsoft's early products himself. A born marketer with enough technical chops to be persuasive, Jobs relied on collaborator Steve Wozniak to create the first Apple computer. Gates was the poster child for geeks everywhere. Jobs, meanwhile, was suave from the start. Gates understood scale and leverage; Jobs grasped style and message. (The more charismatic figure, Jobs, will have been played on film by both Noah Wiley and Ashton Kutcher.) Gates and Jobs became the opposing poles of the frantically growing computing revolution.

    Above all else, though, these rivals understood business. Neither had formal training in the black arts of balance sheets and income statements. Indeed, neither had graduated from college. Yet both were preternaturally shrewd about making a buck -- and how to stick it to the competition.

    Gates dominated the first two decades of their rivalry, overseeing Windows' rise as the world's default operating system. Eventually Jobs welcomed a $150 million investment from Gates in 1997 when Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) was looking death in the face. (Attendees of the Macworld conference where the deal was announced booed Gates' appearance by video.) But during the last 15 years of his life, Jobs flipped the switch on Gates, dominating beyond-the-PC segments like music players, smartphones, and tablets -- all areas of heavy, and mostly fruitless, investment byMicrosof (MSFT, Fortune 500)t. (Irked by this, perhaps, Gates' wife, Melinda, banned their children from having iPods and iPhones in the house.)

    The two were known to trade not-so-subtle barbs. Jobs diagnosed Microsoft's essential problem as a lack of taste. Meanwhile, Gates summed up one of Jobs' greatest achievements, the iPad, by saying simply, "It's okay."

    Born seven months apart (Jobs was older), they were friendly in the years before Jobs died. Having fought each other for so long, they knew better than anyone what the other had accomplished.

    Winner:Steve Jobs