Bill Gates' wife reveals Apple ban at home

SAN FRANCISCO: The Seattle-lakefront mansion that is home to Bill Gates and his family is renowned for incorporating the finest of the world's consumer technology.

But don't expect to see any Apple products there if you're ever invited over to the house of the Microsoft founder.

Melinda Gates, wife of the world's second richest man, revealed in an interview with the New York Times over the weekend that she has instituted a ban on Apple products in the house after her kids pestered her for an iPod music player.

When asked if she owned an iPod, she responded, "No, I have a Zune," referring to Microsoft's much less successful music player.

Pressed on whether her children clamoured for one, she stated, "I have gotten that argument: 'You may have a Zune'."

When asked if she had an iPad, she responded, "Of course not." And when asked if rumours of Bill Gates using a Mac laptop were true, she answered, "False. Nothing crosses the threshold of our doorstep."

The interviewer also asked her whether her husband was upset at being overtaken as the world's richest man this year by Mexican telecom king Carlos Slim.

"The only person that teases him about that is our youngest daughter, our 8-year-old," she said. "He couldn't care less."