by Jack McCarthy

Gates, Vista and Napoleon Dynamite

news
Sep 14, 20051 min

In conjunction with Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, Chairman Bill Gates was interviewed by InfoWorld’s Jon Udell and weighed in on a variety of serious issues, including the relationship of Office 12 to Vista and .Net, and how the .Net CLR and runtime will become widespread.

But Microsoft also screened a video at PDC of Gates playing the role of a programmer in a spoof based on the 2004 cult movie “Napoleon Dynamite.”

The video showed the film’s celebrated anti-hero reporting to work as a programmer for the world’s largest software maker, according to Reuters.

In a face-off between the two nerd icons, Jon Heder, the actor who plays Napoleon Dynamite, beats Gates in a slapping match to become the head of the software giant.

Gates is shown recruiting Heder’s fictional character, after which they are seen together in ill-fitting brown suits on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash., Reuters said.

In the last scene of the video spoof, Gates is seen scurrying into the office of his boss, Napoleon Dynamite.