Just for something a little different I thought I'd throw in a movie review.

The Pirates of Silicon Valley tells the stories of Apple's and Microsoft's births.

What: The Pirates of Silicon Valley
Why buy? History lesson, great story
Why pass? Might only appeal to nerds
Score (max 5) 4
Buy from Amazon [Affiliate link]

The story is interesting as when one considers the current positions of the two organisations and how they got to where they are today. Both Gates and Jobs are totally single-minded about their goals to build great computers and successful companies. Interestingly, they stood apart from other computer companies of the time because of the obsession with software. While IBM believed that the hardware would be the cashcow, Gates conversations with the creator of the Altair that his box was little more than flashing lights without his software was quite prophetic.

As a movie, I found it enjoyable. The portrayals of Jobs (by Noah Wyle of ER fame) and Gates (by Anthony Michael Hall) are very good although I wonder if the negative aspects of the two protaganist's personalities were overplayed. You get the impression from this movie that neither Gates or Jobs were particularly nice people.

While the main characters were great, the main supporting roles of Steve Wozniak (by Joey Slotnick), Steve Ballmer (by John Di Maggio and Paul Allen (by Josh Hopkins were excellent. Ballmer comes across as a crass sycophant with Wozniak and Allen being played quite sympathetically.

Important and funny events like Wozniak and Jobs' relationship with Captain Crunch and their famous blue boxes, Woz's Joke of the Day, Gate's arrest for speeding and his famous meeting with IBM when he licensed them an operating system he didn't have are all there. But it's the portrayal of the two men that most stand out.

The story is played out as one of Jobs being ultimately betrayed by Gates. While there has always been a lot made of the possiblity that Microsoft copied the Mac OS in the first release of Windows it can't be denied that the work of the visionaries of Xerox PARC make them the true forefathers of the modern GUI. While this given fleeting attention Gate's comment in the movie that Jobs was only annoyed because Microsoft stole it before Apple might be the most telling.

Now, I wasn't there in the '70s when all this happened. So, I can't vouch with the accuracy of the story but it seems to gel with what I've read.

As the movie is not available as far as I know in my part of the world I puchased it from Amazon [Affiliate link] it and converted it with Viddy Up and watched it on my iPhone while commuting between work and home.

 Movie • Pirates of Silicon Valley