Bill Gates is a LIAR. There, I said it. In today’s society of “market speak” and other such euphemisms, people are almost expected to “bend the truth” – there you go – another term for what is simply a lie.
Gates in his recent appearances extolling the virtues of Windows Vista wants to harp on the Parental Control features of VISTA. Nothing wrong with that. But he keeps repeating that Vista is the FIRST operating system with parental controls.
Here are some examples:
Interview with Todd Bishop – Seattle Pi.
Q: Reviewers and Apple have pointed out the similarities between Windows Vista and Mac OS X, and questioned Microsoft’s level of innovation based on that. How do you respond to that?
Gates: Well, there’s a lot of innovation that’s unique to this operating system, whether it’s being the first on parental controls, or, you know, we are way better on security than any other system out there.
Q: You really believe that?
Gates: Oh, absolutely.
I’ll leave the security comment for now. That’s a whole different topic unto itself.
NBC Today Show Interview with Meredith Vieria on Jan 29, 2007…
An operating system has never had parental control features before…
CNN – Miles O’Brian – Jan 30, 2007.
O’Brien: Frankly, a lot of what I see here, um, seems to mimic a little bit [Apple’s Mac] OS X. Were you going after a specific look there, the Mac look, or?
Gates: No, no, no. Actually, uh, the, we’re ahead [slight pause] on a lot, uh, there’s whole areas where we’ve innovated like Media Center and tablet, uh, that, uh, no one else is doing and the parental control, that’s the first time that’s been done.
One time is an error. To keep repeating this is a LIE. Why? Because Mac OSX has had parental controls in the Operating System for over 2 years now. I am sure some Microsoft shill will come up with the argument as to why Vista Parental Controls are better. That’s NOT the point. If you are not the first to implement something then repeatedly saying so is a LIE.
It is interesting to note that Gates didn’t try to claim this when he was talking to bloggers at CES. After all, a bunch of them had Mac laptops and could have simply gone to System Preferences – Accounts – Parental Controls to prove him wrong. This is simply the same story of the BIG LIE repeated loud enough and often enough, and it will be taken as gospel by the Tech Media. And when people like yours truly bring this up, it will be dismissed as Sour grapes by Apple Zealots.
Classic Microsoft.