Attention analysis of Jobs and Gates

InsideMicrosoft asks: why doesn't Bill Gates command the same attention Steve Jobs does. Hmmm, actually I'm asking the question; they stated it as a fact. While this may appear to be true, reality is relative. Which circles are we looking at? Are we looking at general consumers or industry analysts, bloggers and technophiles? The reaction should be considerably different across these groups.

Some general thoughts first. It's been long surmised that the reason Jobs (and subsequently Apple) gets so much attention from traditional media is because of Apple's strong presence in the media and publishing businesses. The theory goes that you wouldn't find many journalists ignoring or criticizing a company they've been long affiliated with. And Mac users are known to be ardent enthusiasts. Outside of this technology industry, Apple hardly has any presence at all. Now, Microsoft is a different case altogether. A market size that literally dwarfs Apple's, they are the computing industry's "The Man" (in the IBM of the 1980s way). It doesn't help that they've given up sizable market share to Apple in key areas: education, media and publishing. And because they don't provide an end-to-end computing experience, their users are a fickle bunch. Outside of the technology industry, Microsoft has tremendous presence: from policy making at Capitol Hill to Gates' philanthropic efforts all over the world. Microsoft (and subsequently Gates) enjoys its free ride from the thousands of businesses and developers all over that depend on a platform that not only defined our IT industry, but also formed the metaphorical base for all other existing industries.

Note to Macheads: In the paragraph above, I'm not discounting Jobs as a true visionary or insinuating that Apple is a purveyor of fanaticism and bias. Being a tech. enthusiast myself, I can't imagine a computing industry without Jobs and Apple. This is an analysis based on certain observations that should be largely understood.

In the current case where we're trying to compare attention metrics for Jobs' essay on the music industry and Gates' essay on security in a connected world, we're looking at a completely different circle of people. Jobs' missive is targeted at a more generic crowd which includes technology enthusiasts/industry watchers/the big 4 music companies/content publishers/content consumers etc. Gates' missive is targeted to a more technical crowd about a subject that is largely a black-box mechanism from a general consumer's point of view. So, while a different target audience might hint at attention differences, are there other factors that influence their varying coverage. Consider presentation and the like:

1. Jobs is notorious for being tight-lipped and any trickle of information from his lips is eaten up by the press in general. Gates speaks at several public venues throughout the year and has been increasingly talking about security for some time now.
2. Jobs' essay is much much more simpler to understand. Every point is pertinent to the topic at hand and there are far fewer keywords or generics as compared to Gates's essay. e.g. Gates says: "At Microsoft, Trustworthy Computing provides the foundation for the work we do to create trusted computing experiences." Now, this makes sense in the context of his arguments but unless you're willing to spend some time dissecting his essay, it would very easily come across as circular logic.
3. Gates deals with a topic that is rather expansive and will be in a state of transition for the next decade or so. Jobs' essay deals with an issue that's poised to radically change within this year. It's more immediate in nature.

Now there are other points of interest to note here but if you've been through the two essays, you already know what I'm talking about. I won't beat that drum over and over. Instead, if you're an astute reader, you'll notice that in the second paragraph I related Apple to Jobs and later Gates to Microsoft. The order of association is important. Microsoft and Apple are both companies blessed with founders of incredible stature. While one has been successful in building a brand value outside of its co-founder, the other has become increasingly reliant on its own. You know what I'm talking about though in Apple's defence it's a much much harder task to create a company brand value outside of a founder who's not only as charismatic as Jobs but someone who's saved the company from going into oblivion countless times. Whatever the case, the next couple of years will write the final chapters in the stories of both these legends with their respective companies.

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