Bill Gates the founder and former CEO of Microsoft, sat down for an interview with “Nightline” ABC News in which he discussed several topics about his private life and the moments he shared with Steve Jobs. Gates talked in detail about his last meeting he had with Steve Jobs at his house a few days prior to his death, and how his passing affected him.

Bill Gates obviously no longer works at Microsoft, but he does still have quite a loud voice when it comes to the tech community considering what he did to build the empire that is Microsoft. In an interview with Bill Gates where he was asked what he thought about Apple and their new iPad, Mr. Gates answered with an interesting remark, in my opinion…

The Ballmer brigade up there in Redmond really are shameless. The irony is almost as hilarious as it is ridiculous.

For those who don’t know, Microsoft recently ended their short lived Jerry Seinfeld campaign, and started a new campaign featuring a John Hodgeman look-alike and various other people ranging from celebrities like Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra, to ordinary joes, to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates himself.

Microsoft is hoping that their new, more direct response to Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign will help revitalize the Windows brand’s tarnished image.

Strange, because Microsoft doesn’t seem to think their products are all that great for video and image editing themselves, as they’ve admitted to creating their latest ad on a Mac…

The TV show Seinfeld was about nothing, and the ads Microsoft ran featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld seemed to follow the same theme.

Now, CrunchGear is reporting that Microsoft is ditching Seinfeld. Sorry folks, we won’t be seeing any additional commercials of Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. The problem is that the ads, for the most part, confused people, as Microsoft apparently forgot to clue people in on just what the commercials were about. I found the first commercial puzzling, as I was expecting it to focus on why users should purchase Windows Vista over Macs. Instead, the first commercial was set in a shoe store, and focused on shoes. Err…what? Vista wasn’t even mentioned. Was Microsoft’s point that even though we don’t always think about a good pair of shoes, they are essential and reliable, just like Microsoft?

I found it interesting that Seinfeld was even chosen for the ads. In his popular show of the same name, Seinfeld had a Mac displayed in his apartment. And, over the years, his Mac was upgraded. In fact, a 20th anniversary Mac made an appearance on the show. Seinfeld also appeared in Apple’s think different ad campaign. Obviously, Seinfeld was a switcher. Not that there is anything wrong with that…

So, imagine this: you are a huge software company. You make one of the two major comsumer operating systems. Your competitor has a highly successful ad campaign that for two years has been beating your product up. The competitor’s sales are growing steadily, while yours are slowing. You decide it’s enough already, and you are going to invest lots of money in a rebuttal campaign. So how should this campaign work?

Find out after the break.

With Bill Gates’ departure from his everyday role at Microsoft having happened over a month ago now, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on what this means for Apple’s relationship with Microsoft, and vice versa.

I think that despite Bill’s obvious place in the Windows-based world, he still has and has always had a certain affinity for the Mac platform and many of Apple’s products. Let’s not forget that Bill was so very involved in software for the original Macintosh, and agreed to form probably Apple’s single most important partnership that, in my opinion, likely saved Apple from going under in the late 90s.

Video and more thoughts after the break.