Bill Gates has perhaps unsurprisingly banned his family from owning any Apple products, poor things. Mellinda (Bill's wife) has been lusting after friends iPhones for a while but has resisted the urge, with commendable willpower. The adverse publicity that this could cause Microsoft's chairman (her husband) would be awful if she were to buy one, but would it?
Surely the adverse publicity is the sad fact Bill's family are banned from Apple technology. Indeed it could be argued that there is some great Microsoft technology in the iPhone with its implementation of Microsoft exchange and the fact that Microsoft themselves are writing applications for the iPhone. It's all a bit sad really.
I am sure that Steve Jobs personally uses some Microsoft technologies, and would not even think about banning his family from using Microsoft products. Remember that the next Apple operating system (Snow Leopard) will have full support for Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange built in.
My motto is use the best kit for the job, whoever makes it. Microsoft as a company seem happy to embrace some Apple technologies, as well as Apple having an extensive track record of embracing some Microsoft technologies. Arguably Bill has generated more adverse comments by banning his family from Apple than he would have done if he had let them embrace Apple's products.
This begs the question. Does this extend to any other companies that Microsoft is competing with? For instance is his family only allowed to play with xbox's, is Melinda banned from having a Wii?
