Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs gave keynotes this week. By now you’ve probably heard of the iPhone, Apple’s latest gadget. I bet it’d be a challenge for most of you to name even one thing Bill talked about though. How does Steve do it?

One insightful person mentioned to me recently that Bill’s keynote are always about the future, Steve Jobs keynotes are always about today. Bill gets up and talks about products (Vista, cough) that might come out in 2-3 years. Steve talks about products that are often available in 2-3 weeks. (The iPhone is an exception, it will take 6 months to arrive due to FCC regulation.)

Now is powerful. When we were at DEMO, I think we launched Mailroom with the overall wrong message. We’ve refined that part a bunch since we launched. Yet we still won the DEMOgod award. Why?

I think a big part of it is that we actually launched at DEMO. Most companies didn’t. After a day of presentations from people who were “going into beta in six months” or “launching in Q3 of this year”, you could tell from the audience reaction that it was refreshing to see a company demo their product publicly for the first time and then say “it’s available NOW!”

We’ve been chatting lately about whether or not we should something with the beta tag or not. Using the beta tag is nice because it gives you the freedom to field test your software without risking your reputation. It’s tempting to launch and tell people it will be really read sometime later.

But there sure is a lot of power in NOW.

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Alec Saunders is the latest of many to wonder if Apple’s release of Boot Camp means a long term switch to Windows.

As someone who has been involved in the Mac software community for a long time, let me assure you: Apple will never switch to Windows nor will it sell Mac OS for regular Windows hardware. Here are five reasons why:

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I was rather impressed at DEMO as the team from Riya got up on stage and proceeded to use their gratuitous baby demonstration, so I put my business card in their beta fishbowl, and waited to get an invite. Well, the invite came with some very explicit instructions. Especially in regard to bloggers. Take a look for yourselves.

I go to the prescribed link, riya.com/groundTruth to find this message:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN”T USE MY BROWSER!!! Any web company should know some basic facts about internet users.

1. 3 browsers come to mind (IE, Firefox, Safari) one of which, really sucks.
2. A greater percentage of Mac users are online vs. Windows users
3. Your first customers should be the loudest and easiest to reach, a.k.a. fanatics

Simple formula: Mac user = fanatic

It really is that simple. Apple has a monopoly on customer evangelists. It is part of the culture and is in our blood. Why on earth would you not want to target the lowest hanging fruit on the tree. Here I am …. pick me!!! Of course, you are saying, “Just use Firefox instead. You do have Firefox, right?” Of course, I have Firefox. I will eventually get around to it. But, Riya made my life harder. I wanted to kick the tires on the new photo search and see for myself. In fact, I would have been a great tester and provided you with feedback.

Instead, “you lost me at hello.”

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