Leader: Arnie versus Bill - go on, pick a winner

Who would you back in a head-to-head fight: Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bill Gates? Before you start conjuring up some kind of celebrity deathmatch image, just consider we haven't explained what kind of fight.

Even if The Governator is a little flabbier than in his 1980s heyday, he'd still be more than a match physically for Microsoft's co-founder and chairman.

What we are of course more interested in is their respective interests. Can the state of California - Arnie's manor - take on Microsoft with any degree of confidence?

A recent development, pointing to California taking on Microsoft for antitrust wrongdoing in terms of government contracts, suggests California has something up its sleeve. If the actions of other states such as Massachusetts are anything to go by, it may well indeed be earning some much needed cash this way. And let's not forget that the DoJ won a victory, of sorts, against Microsoft not too long ago.

Then we hear that in his efficiency drive, Governor Schwarzenegger's people are examining open source as a way to spend less on IT. That kind of software has its supporters and detractors (see: Schwarzenegger the new Torvalds?) but the bottom line is that this route is probably less certain than a lawsuit or two to put some black ink on a predominantly red balance sheet.

Should we be surprised if the largest state in the US (in terms of people and wealth) has a love-hate relationship with Microsoft?

There are plenty of reasons why Microsoft is welcomed there. Hundreds of companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere have grown rich by allying themselves with Gates' empire. And let's not forget that Microsoft has a considerable (mainly internet-oriented) business based there itself.

But also remember Microsoft is not a Silicon Valley company. Sure, it may say it's a Valley company, just like it's a UK company or a Chinese company or a global company, depending on the context, but its roots lie in Redmond, on the fringes of Seattle in Washington state.

And let's not forget rivals such as Adobe, Google, Oracle and Sun are very much Silicon Valley through and through, with all the local goodwill that implies.

A footnote to the 'California considering open source' story mentioned above was that the state is thinking about running ads next to content on its websites. Think of the eyeballs... and the unhappy execs at a Google or Yahoo!

It's clear that Schwarzenegger, if he's going to take on tech, may win some (antitrust case), may lose some (making open source pay to any significant degree) and may end fighting as mean as anyone else out there, as long as there's a buck to be made.