Quotes of the year that was…
[Microsoft is] going to integrate the operating system that everyone has to have with the browser that they want you to use. Integrating it into one thing, they think they get an unstoppable advantage. But look, I have a house, and I have a boat, but that doesn’t mean I want a houseboat. – Netscape Communications Corp’s Jim Barksdale.
Right now I want to prove wrong the people who predict our demise. That motivates me probably more than the millions of shares or the $1 a year salary I take or having a house and a boat or even the possibility of a houseboat. – Barksdale on the Netscape naysayers.
Companies with such ugly balance sheets should have their stock taken behind the barn for a real whipping. – analyst discussing Wall Street’s continuing love affair with online services company America Online Inc.
It is like an allstar baseball team saying ‘Now, let’s all go play basketball’. Dell Computer Corp CEO Michael Dell on Compaq Computer Corp’s attempts to emulate his company’s direct sales model.
At IBM, we have no hesitation to steal or borrow other companies’ technologies … well, we don’t steal or course. – IBM Corp’s Bill Etherington, getting a little carried away.
Next time I drop by, I might be running the whole R/3 application on something I have in my shirt pocket … I think that quite likely. – Lew Platt, CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co to the SAP User Group.
We ain’t telling them shit. They’re just trying to get information. – Max Watson, CEO of BMC, on why his staff don’t say much at meetings with Microsoft.
The Digital chipset will be history by December 31st. – Nick Earle of Hewlett-Packard Co on DEC’s motivation for its lawsuit with Intel Corp.
I should be chairman of Apple … Gil Amelio [Apple CEO] doesn’t know anything about anything, he is pompous and full of himself. – Larry Ellison, Oracle Corp CEO, in June’s Vanity Fair.
He had his wig on too tight, causing brain damage. – Seagate CEO Al Shugart, on the British High Court judge who ordered Seagate to pay $78m in damages and interest to computer maker Amstrad.
He seems to be suffering from the same problem as the disk drives he shipped us – memory loss.
– Amstrad CEO Alan Sugar, responding to Shugart.
Java will really be the vehicle for getting developers off the Microsoft heroin and onto a more open platform. – Alan Baratz, of Sun’s JavaSoft Inc.
At Olivetti, it took months to produce anything, even the net cash position. Disillusioned fund manager and one time investor in troubled Italian computer and telecoms conglomerate Olivetti SpA.
I’m just a poor French farmer abducted by aliens and raised by venture capitalists. What do I know?
Jean-Louis Gasse, CEO, Be Inc, on his attempts to sell his company to Apple Computer Inc.
The experience goes beyond analytic description.
Bill Gates, on bringing up his daughter, in Time.
