Bill and Steve's Dueling Keynotes End With a Whimper

With Bill Gates' upcoming retirement, January marked the last time he and Steve Jobs would deliver back-to-back keynote speeches at CES and Macworld, respectively. We're witnessing the end to one of the most interesting personal rivalries the technology industry has ever known. Both men's presentations lacked any real punch, though, and they've left us hanging.

Because the Consumer Electronics Show and Macworld run back to back, it's easy to make comparisons between the two men who headline the big tech trade shows. As a journalist, I had barely unpacked my bags, mentally speaking, before I had to move on from listening to Bill Gates to hearing Steve Jobs.

This year is the last when I can draw a timely comparison between, as the Apple ads depict, the straitlaced PC Guy and the cool Mac Guy. Gates said this year's speech was his final CES keynote before he becomes a full-time philanthropist. Jobs won't have Gates to belittle anymore. However, even with Gates gone, Apple will no doubt still find ways to belittle Microsoft . I get the sense that the needling comes from the very top. This kind of tit-for-tat sparring has gone on between the two men since the 1970s.

How Times Change

It is funny how things change. When Gates gave his first CES keynote in 1994, Microsoft was on the march and Jobs was still trying to get his little animated film company, Pixar , off the ground. Now the positions seem reversed. Jobs has more cachet than Gates. He has a Midas touch, with everything from his new operating system to the iPhone getting rave reviews. The only exception was the original Apple TV.

Gates went out with a whimper. Microsoft didn't have many new products to tout at CES. Some cool things, like the Microsoft Surface Computing table, weren't ready to ship. Gates repeated parts of his past speeches on the "digital decade," but he didn't close with any great predictions. Nor did he slam rivals or dazzle us with his intelligence.

His most scintillating quote:

"This is just the beginning. There is nothing holding us back from going much faster and much further in the second digital decade."

I got a sense that Gates didn't have his heart in everything he was talking about. Sure, he had shipped 110 million copies of Windows Vista, the new Microsoft operating system. That's a good way to go out. However, he closed with a demo of "Guitar Hero III," a video game you can get on non-Microsoft platforms. It was as if he had nothing profound to say.

The Man With the $7 Haircut

The hilarious thing that Gates did was make fun of himself in a video that depicted his "last day" of work at Microsoft, expected to happen sometime in the summer. It was as if he was minimizing his importance at Microsoft, signaling that the company could go on without him. He mocked his own celebrity status and used the cachet of his video guests -- George Clooney, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore and others -- to entertain the crowd. He apparently wants to be remembered for his sense of humor, not for wise words or stunning demos. NBC anchor Brian Williams closed the video with this:

"Let's face it, (Gates) doesn't believe in paying more than $7 for a haircut."

That's what you say about the class clown, not the world's richest man.

Proud Papa

Jobs, meanwhile, was the celebrity at Macworld. The crowd hooted and cheered every little announcement. With his showman's flair, Jobs showed off a few innovations that reflected the different styles of the companies.

Microsoft did so many demos that it diluted the impact of each one. Jobs limited himself to just four products that he treated like his babies. He looked like a proud papa when he held up the world's thinnest notebook computer, walking back and forth on stage with it so everyone could photograph it. And he touted such accomplishments as selling 5 million copies of Apple's new operating system in 90 days and selling 20,000 iPhones a day in 200 days.

Clearly, the personal style of Jobs is hands on, as if he were a Swiss-watch maker. With the dueling keynotes, I have come to expect more from Jobs than I do from Gates. Maybe that's why I was more disappointed with Jobs.

No "One More Thing"

These were evolutionary, not revolutionary, announcements by Apple standards, said Tim Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies.

Last year, Macworld outshone CES because of Jobs' big iPhone announcement. This time, Jobs rescued Apple TV from an early death, but he didn't close with his signature "one more thing," surprising the audience with something totally unexpected. Instead, he introduced singer Randy Newman and walked off the stage. It was as if Jobs pulled a punch and decided to keep more announcements in his pocket for another day.

Last year, Jobs and Gates appeared on stage together at the All Things D conference to reminisce about old times. Gates said he would love to have Jobs' taste in picking designs. Jobs commented on how the Mac Guy and the PC Guy need each other.

That's all the closure we'll get to the "Steve & Bill Show." We're witnessing the end to one of the most interesting personal rivalries the technology industry has ever known. In the past couple of weeks, it happened without much ado. It leaves me hanging. Like the ending of "The Sopranos."