Raikes on Microsoft, Apple

As part of a speech last week at an event held by Seattle University's Albers School of Business, Microsoft executive Jeff Raikes told the story of leaving Apple for Microsoft in 1981. The beginning of today's Microsoft Notebook summarizes the anecdote, but here's the story as Raikes told it:

"It was fascinating to see what Microsoft was at that point in time. At Apple, the whole world revolved around Apple. That was it. But when I walked down the halls at Microsoft, I saw different computers. Computers from Japan, from Radio Shack, from Wang, from Digital Equipment Corp. Literally dozens and dozens of manufacturers. I really didn't know much about those manufacturers, but the thing that occurred to me when I was interviewing at Microsoft was that I wasn't sure who was going to win in the hardware business, but it sure looked like Microsoft was doing the software for all of them. And so, although Steve Jobs yelled at me for a while and told me what a risky bet it would be to move to Seattle, and how Microsoft was going to go out of business -- that is no joke, that is an exact quote from Mr. Jobs -- I decided to take the plunge."