Microsoft's Gates faces off with Napoleon Dynamite

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pick your favourite geek: Napoleon Dynamite or Bill Gates?

Seeking to capitalise on the popularity of the 2004 cult movie "Napoleon Dynamite", Microsoft on Tuesday screened a video spoof for software developers in which the film's celebrated anti-hero reports to work as a programmer for the world's largest software maker.

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, Washington.

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

Microsoft often uses major events to poke fun at its competitive business culture and its hands-on chairman, Gates, the company's largest individual shareholder and the world's richest man with an estimated net worth of more than US$48 billion.

Microsoft showed developers preliminary versions of its upgrades of its flagship Windows and Office programs to software developers at this weeks' conference in Los Angeles.