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LAS VEGAS, Nevada — When Steve Jobs took the stage this week to present one of the most important products in his company's history, he knew that the very name of the iPhone was in dispute and that U.S. communications officials had not even approved the device.
Those facts might have concerned other business leaders in his position. But Mr. Jobs didn't miss a beat.
"Thank you for coming. We are going to make some history today," he told his faithful at the Macworld conference in San Francisco. "Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone."
The 51-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer then proceeded to grab headlines around the world with details of a smart phone everyone had expected, but no one else had been able to imagine.
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Less than two days earlier, Bill Gates took the stage before a similar gathering of tech aficionados to do his traditional keynote that launches the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. His mission was similar to that of Mr. Jobs: get the world excited about technology and his company's most important product.
The audience had lined up for an hour-and-a-half before jostling and pushing for a seat in the auditorium to see the richest man in the world.
Mr. Gates walked to the podium, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and tried to make a joke about being invited back to do future speeches. "I'm not sure they'll want to invite me, because I might talk a lot more about infectious diseases than great software."
He gave a flat, tired performance, even as he showed off features of the Vista operating system, a product that by his own description will be the most used piece of software on the planet.
What do these contrasting tones, from the two largest icons of the personal computer industry, signal about the companies they created and lead?
One is led by an extraordinary visionary who maintains a vice-like grip on operations. The other is led by a revered technophile who is gradually slipping out the back door.
The two visionaries have been arch rivals since their early days in Silicon Valley in the 1970s, and their markedly different characteristics are well known.
"Microsoft has a certain cult of personality. Gates is thought of as a special guru, and people sit at his feet trying to understand what he's thinking," says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc., a research firm in Wayland, Mass. "That's totally different from Steve Jobs. He's an autocrat. He's a sun king. He's very capricious, autocratic, and creative and charismatic. He's all kinds of good things, mixed with some pretty strange things. It's a totally unique formula."
The personalities of both men have been imprinted on their companies for years.
"I think of Apple as a crystal where Steve is the seed crystal, and everybody has to conform to the shape of the seed crystal to build the big crystalline function. It's just sort of little versions of Steve," Mr. Kay says.
"Microsoft, despite the fact that it is perceived from afar as being Mordor of the dark forces, is really much more collegial. It's like a seminar with a bunch of very smart people. There are a lot of people creating momentum, making decisions and running businesses."
The culture Mr. Gates created has defined Microsoft as a "fast-follower." The software giant moves to dominate a new market where others have already led the way. The examples abound, starting with Microsoft's move into web browsing behind Netscape, web search and advertising after Yahoo, live software services behind Google, and digital music after Apple and the iPod.
Now the Redmond, Wash., company is trying to repeat the success it had in the PC market and make its software the standard for the new world of consumer electronics. Mobile smart phones, high definition televisions, game consoles, high-speed Internet and massive storage drives are just part of the equation, Mr. Gates said.
"The key thing missing is the connection. Delivering connected experiences requires more than just great hardware. So consumer electronics has been defined to be a much broader industry."
Apple, on the other hand, enjoys the reputation of innovator, creating revolutionary products that have shaped the industry, beginning with the Macintosh computer in 1984, the iPod portable music player in 2001 and now the iPhone.
"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been," Mr. Jobs said, quoting Wayne Gretzky.
This has been a watershed week for both men, with each presenting one of the biggest accomplishments of their careers.
"This is by far the most important release of Windows ever," Mr. Gates said of Vista. It is "the biggest investment ever put into a piece of software."
But it was also clear that Mr. Gates is quickly heading to the exit. He has committed to remain chairman, but will step down from day-to-day activities at Microsoft by next summer to spend most of his time on his philanthropic causes, reducing child mortality and poverty in the developing world.
When Mr. Gates was reaching the end of his keynote, he turned his attention to a vision of the future where home devices will be digitally connected and powered by software. In a poorly-rehearsed demonstration of Microsoft's home of the future, he stood at a makeshift kitchen counter where new screen technology could project recipes in front of him. Then he showed how wall projections could be used to decorate a room.
Mr. Jobs, on the other hand, is still pumped on the adrenaline he gets from creating products that change the world. "I didn't sleep a wink last night, I was so excited," he confessed, as he bound from one end of the stage to the other.
He showed off the iPhone's touch screen controls, which let users flick their fingers on the glass to scroll the pages. He demonstrated how a proximity sensor and accelerometer in the device smartly adjust the display as a user moves it around.
"The level of engagement of each of these individuals in the products their companies make is very different," says Charles Golvin, principal analyst with Forrester Research Inc. in San Francisco. "Jobs is the primary driver of the requirements, of the look and feel, of the actual experience. He is deeply involved with all aspects of the creation of a product like the iPhone."
"I'm sure Gates plays a very, very active role in the development of Vista, but I don't think that extends across all products Microsoft makes. By nature, all the announcements can't possibly reflect his personal emotional attachment and commitment. That's the nature of the difference between the two companies."
When Mr. Gates moves on next year, it will be the end of an era, but Microsoft will continue its business as usual.
"Nothing is really going to change except the sentiment," Mr. Kay says.
But Apple's future remains tightly tied to its founder, even after almost 31 years.
The Cupertino, Calif., company learned what life without Steve was like for 12 years, after he was pushed out by the CEO he hired, John Sculley. Apple languished and slipped into a niche role in the personal computer world. Since Mr. Jobs returned in 1997, the company's stock has risen almost tenfold, and analysts say that even at this stage of his career, the scope of his effect is hard to measure.
"I personally don't think that digital music would be where it is today without him and his ability to make the deals with the record labels. And the same thing with internet delivered video," Mr. Golvin says. "Disney and now Paramount and Fox and ABC - they wouldn't have made those deals with anyone else. It took Jobs and his vision to make those deals happen."
Mr. Jobs has successfully fought a bout of pancreas cancer since his return. His latest survival challenge may be criminal probes by the U.S. securities regulator and the Justice Department into backdated options at the company.
"The risk to Apple, if he was not there, would be very, very substantial," Mr. Golvin says.
During his Macworld address, Mr. Jobs called Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google Inc., up to the stage to show how his company has tailored its map software for the iPhone. Then he called up the founder of Google's rival Yahoo, and Jerry Yang described how his company's software would provide web search and email for the iPhone.
Next came Stan Sigman, the head of Cingular Wireless, the nation's biggest mobile phone company. He described how he met Mr. Jobs two years ago in New York and signed a contract as the iPhone's exclusive carrier without ever seeing the device. It was an easy decision, he said, "because of the confidence that I have in Steve and his leadership team to deliver."
That kind of display of partnership power is unusual even in the technology world, observers say. "There's no one in digital world who is as much of a rock star as [Jobs] is. There's really no one else who can do that," Mr. Kay says.
