Gates hits a snag in CyberCafe interview

[ericb@pobox.com (Eric M. Bennett)]

http://www.wral-tv.com/news/national/APN--BillGates__________=TOPAP.html

Interview ground rules came early.

One hour, no more. No questions like ``What's it like to be that rich?''
He'd get up and leave, handlers said. Oh - and make it a cultural piece,
not a technology story. ``That's what he's interested in,'' said a PR
guy.

What would an Internet user be interested in? I turned to America
Online, to a ``chat room'' of people discussing the World Wide Web. I
asked them: ``I'm interviewing Bill Gates. Do you have any questions for
him?''

Answers came fast. ``Just rude comments.'' ``Don't get me started.''
``When's he going to start coming up with his own ideas?'' typed a
third. And from a fourth: ``Why is it that every new release of Windows
looks more and more like the Mac?''

This sort of pish-posh is common not only across the Internet but in
many trade magazines and the popular press. Understandably, people fear
Gates and his 21-year-old company for their power and influence; they
denounce him as a greedy corporate demon who's trying to dominate the
Internet or define him by his decidedly uncorporate mien. ``A
personality with all the warmth of a tray of ice cubes,'' the Times of
London wrote recently, an assessment I found untrue.

Initially, Gates' handlers planned to have him sit in front of a
computer and surf the Internet. But the cafe's Windows 95 machine was
pokey, and a Net connection failed.

``What about the other two?'' I ask, pointing to terminals nearby.

``Can't,'' comes the response. ``They're Macs.''



--
Eric Bennett ( ericb@pobox.com ; http://www.pobox.com/~ericb )

How do you give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt when you know that if
you throw it into a room with truth, you'd risk a matter/anti-matter
explosion?

- Nicholas Petreley, InfoWorld Magazine
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayArchives.pl?dt_iwe38-96_36.htm


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