the u.s. electrical grids. >> this week on "the communicators" walt mossberg who writes a personal technology column in the "wall street journal" that is geared toward the average technology user. >> host: tech watchers and viewers of this program will recognize the name walt mossberg of the "wall street journal," maybe not the face, but he is joining us this week on "the communicators". he writes the personal technology column in the "wall street journal," and he is also

co executive editor of all things the .com. when did you start writing your column? >> guest: it was 1992 -- 1991. you can call me walt. >> host: i appreciate that. do you remember what your first column was about in 1991? >> guest: the first line of my first column was personal computers are just too hard to use and is now your fault. the idea behind the column was there are a lot of computer columns of the time, technology columns. the contribution i made was to convince the editors of the journal that we should write a column on like nearly all the others that was not written by geeks for geeks but was actually written to champion non techie smart people that were smart about whatever their business was, television, there were an

insurance agent, teacher, whenever it was. they did not know or really want to know how to computer or the digital camera or whatever it was worked, they just wanted to be able to use it. in those days i think sometimes it's hard for viewers not to remember, it was really, you had to basically put in many, many, many hours and days and weeks to learn the intricacies of a personal computer. so my idea was to write this in english, a champion most people, not the techies and is used, and instead of being reverential toward the industry, which a lot of the writers were in those days, i was given full leeway to be critical of the industry for not making these things easier for average nine to keep people to use. that was the idea. >> host: so when is the last time you wrote about pcs?

>> guest: within the last few months. i still review pcs. laptops, notebooks. i have a writing partner who works for me. very bright woman who reviewed the new mac book pro last week. they're are hundreds of millions of them. i think there will be eventually , and when i say eventually i mean probably not that long in the future, the tablet like your ipad here on the desk, but smacking of pc's every second that we are sitting here in this interview. and actually, it is even more prevalent in some parts of the world outside the u.s.

i'm not done writing about pcs. and furthermore, there is a very valid, i think, a theory that says that the ipad you have your end of the tablets are pcs, justin at different form. obviously are radically different user interface and all of that, but i don't regard that as just a consumption device to watch movies on, although it's great for that. i think it is a productivity devices will. the companies, which i don't particularly pay attention to a buying these things in the tens of thousands. >> host: "the communicators", when it comes to technology, is there a big three? and i'm thinking of facebook, amazon to mcdougal, apple. >> guest: a big five. eric schmidt, you know, the

executive chairman of kugel -- elizabeth wasserman -- google. this website. also has what i think is the premier tech conference in the country. all things digital. our tenth year. he spoke last year and talked about the gang of four companies that are dominant now he was tweaking microsoft. and the five are apple, amazon, google and microsoft. what makes those the principal competitors is that they all own platforms on which other companies are building products and services said that they control these big egos systems in which are racists and

services and software and apps. also competing with each other, at least in certain ways. you might say, well, apple is a harbor company. amazon mostly sells products and digital content. google is mostly search and advertising. and that's true, but they all are kind of in each other's business. they sue each other regularly. and so that is the big battle right now between those. >> host: when those five companies started they had one thing in common which is the did not care much about washington d.c. they did not have any kind of washington presence. now they all have a pretty prominent washington presence and growing. >> guest: yes. they not only did not care much about washington, they were pretty much determined to ignore government.

at think it was sort of value to some extent, but there were -- they were living in this world where they thought there were changing the world by innovating . we don't have any trouble raising money. we don't have any money -- trouble attracting talent, and we can see right before our eyes that the whole world is actually changing because of the product and make. so on like those old industries here, oil, railroads, whenever, we don't need to do with the government. obviously they have legal departments that were involved in making sure they complied with regulations.

you know, in the ensuing time there really built up their lobbying. even then it was many years before apple had more than a couple people here in d.c. and now, as you point out, they all have significant offices here. in some cases not only, but they actually have a little tech work sometimes going on in the region here around d.c. >> host: so when it comes to the lobbying and the regulatory agencies here in washington and the tech companies, first of all , the microsoft antitrust suit, was it just because microsoft got too big? >> guest: no, it was not just because microsoft got too big. i'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it is not illegal to be a monopoly.

it's just illegal to use your monopoly power in certain ways. microsoft was viewed by the justice department as the kind of bullying or constraining the companies that made pcs. they're was an antitrust case involving apple and some publishers are now. there is a google antitrust case under consideration. no cases been filed. so these are -- it's not the sheer size of these companies that sometimes attracts the attention of the government has the way that they interact with the economy, the way they interact with privacy, the way they interact with commerce. they're big, and in the case of apple they are very big in a dollar sense, but they're also big in the sense that they have an impact on everyone's life.

obviously of regulators and enforcement agencies in the city. i will say that i spent 20 years as a washington correspondent and editor here in our washington bureau before turning to technology. my observation is that the government's in general was and still is way behind in its actual integration and use of technology on a day-to-day basis . on give you an example. the government is the last -- one of the last major holdouts of using the blackberry. the blackberry is a historic and important and story device. you never want to rule out that the company, particularly in

tech, will make a comeback. today if you have a choice of a device to carry around the blackberry is a severely limited device compared to an iphone or an android phone. and, yet, this is one of the few cities where you can walk around and see large numbers a blackberry subject. the dossier in chicago, new york, l.a., london, you know, latin america. basically the world has moved on and washington has not. that is kind of assembled. when i used to cover national security in the state department , this was 25 years ago, granted. the reporters and the secretary of state's airplanes, including me, had what was, for the time much more advanced laptops than

the secretary of state's officials or the cia people on the plane with dod people on the plant. we had the best technology and our government did not. and obviously things have improved a lot since 25 years ago, but at every stage as technology moves the government is the most, sort of, laggard. so i think that actually affects the understanding of these companies. i'm not saying that the government should not be regulating them, and there was of you at one time that they were sort of immune to regulation. i don't believe that. but i do think that sometimes the government, congress is understanding or the white house is understanding is now where it should be. >> host: why is that? >> guest: don't know. i think their is a come here to some extent. >> host: is there a cash in

silicon valley? >> guest: i was about to say there is a cocoon in silicon valley, but thinking about the weight average people of rate or the governments of the world of break, they're getting educated fast. they do everything vast and here in washington we do everything slow. they're is a kent in new york, i suppose in parts of new york about the financial industry. they don't quite connect without everyone else sees the more interacts with them. every town that is an industry town has that. silicon valley certainly does. the washington kent, one of the impact of it, i think, has been tough not allow at least the senior people. i think the junior people are different, staffers and people are much more attuned to normal use of technology. really very few people at senior

levels in the branches of government with a digital westbound compared to leaders of even corporations that are not in tech have learned to live. i was recently at a meeting to my company, a whole hierarchy of the company that is not a tech company. it as dealings with tech companies, but it is not a tech company. they have all switched to just using ipads. they all were sitting there with ipads in front of them. the ceo, the ceo, the cfo, the chief marketing officer, all these people. they have adopted this quickly. in hollywood they have adopted it. you see iphone and ipads and sometimes android devices in the hands of even the top people. they read their scrips and have

put away their laptops. not so much here in washington. so there is a gap. >> i did bring down my personal devices. you can see, here is a blackberry. android and in ipad. how much of a dinosaur might. >> guest: well, the android and i've had a very modern. i would not say you are dinosaur of all. i don't know why you still have the blackberry.

we don't know whether that will appeal to consumers, but they decided to essentially a doubt apple's model. rivals for decades, and one of the big differences between them was that microsoft was very, very firm on the idea that putting aside for a minute the

xbox which is a separate thing in the gaming market, their philosophy was, we will make the operating system and let other people make the hardware. apple's philosophy right from the beginning has been the right way to do this is to do the whole thing so that the software integrates with the hardware. it's one reason, for instance -- i mean, i tested along with my reviewing colleagues, i don't know, two dozen or three dozen tablets. not a single one has come within two hours of the battery life of the ipad. and is not because apple has a secret ballot -- battery technology. it is partly because they own the top rating system and they own the hardware, and they can't make the operating system operate in no way under the covers that is friendly to

battery life. a company like samsung, as did the company as it is commanded is, has to take android and kind of integrated with their hardware, and the two things were not made to get it. so to go to the question, the first thing i would say is, microsoft is a historic thing. they have capitulated to the apple model. now, they're doing it to compete with apple, but they tried it once before with the music player, but it was way too

states. i don't mean to sound like i'm want to go crazy and "regulate the internet. on the other hand i don't

believe the internet should resist to of exist as a place outside the law. so, you know, here is an example of one thing that might happen. now, we know -- i know before i say this that the political climate in congress is never ever this simple, but you could have a bill which simply said, peter, that your personal a permission, which the law would define whatever it is, your name, gender, age, and come, address, phone number, you know, whenever, wherever eight, ten, 12 items they think of as your core personal affirmation affects you as your private property and should be treated like all other private property in the united states. we have a whole economy and society built on private property. thousands of court cases and thousands of loss of about the disposition.

know. if you use them and says you have an android phone, use presumably some of their other services. they know a lot about you. i'm not saying they use it, but we all know that there are some cases, the case that is still going on with the street mapping and where they were collecting stuff out of people's wi-fi networks. they know a lot about you. apple also knows a lot about you. apple has been -- has had a few slip ups in the but by and large apple has been much more conservative about your privacy, much to the consternation of, for instance, magazine publishers and others. apple has not been willing to give them even your basic

information unless you allow, and that is annoyed a lot of the magazine publishers. so apple is more restrictive, but 400 million customers whose credit cards they have. i don't mean that they stole the credit cards. i mean you when you signed up as a customer at itunes into the credit-card just as you have presumably done at amazon or other places. so they know a certain amount about you. >> host: walt mossberg, and the pastor tucker but companies such as aol, dell, and now we are talking about apple and microsoft. is one of the big five going to be a dinosaur in te

chance. a lot of sectors of our society with failure being a big stigma. tech is not one of them.

the answer is to many of these people.

this is -- there were -- there were -- there were -- in the early 80's there were theories and papers written about having something thin and little like this that could never last you all kinds of amazing things