Quotes of the Week, December 8-12
"Most PC makers want IE because that's what users want. Microsoft can no longer make PC vendors install IE but it's a preliminary ruling at this stage. PC makers are free as they always have been to install another browser." - Microsoft spokesman on the big DOJ ruling that said no forced IE bundling.
"What's most important is that starting tomorrow, choice will be restored to the market." - Joel Klein, Justice Department's antitrust division boss.
"We're very much at the beginning of a new era in the way companies do business. Find me a business that's not on the Web, and I'll show you a bus that's out of touch with the future. We're seeing a transformation of industries and buying habits. We consider one of the advances to be service and support, yet it doesn't get quite the attention that Internet milestones like revenue get." - Michael Dell lauds the Net.
"But the competition is just brutal. You simply have too many companies producing too many drives at a time when customers can and should afford to be more cost conscious." - DISK/TREND president Bob Katzvie on the bloody hard disk business.
"Will there be any more acquisitions? Who knows. The python better digest for now." - Network Associates' Gene Hodges on the purchase of Helix.
"Yahoo! could have done with this." - Hodges on how a planned Net intrusion detection utility could have helped Yahoo! which had suffered just such a problem earlier in the week. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
"He was later found at his home by the police trying to wire the product into the back of a TV set, believing it to be a video recorder. Our mission is to improve the levels of technical service and customer support in distribution, but the industry needs a better standard of crook, too. I know Cisco products are multifunctional, but this is pushing it." - Jos White, marketing director at RBR Networks, on the thief who stole a router, thinking it was a VCR.
"The release of 'Deschutes' accelerates the move the PII architecture. If you're holding MMX stock you'd better get rid of it quick. Next year, I think you'll see the MMX name disappear - it will just be a given, something you get with the box." - Cyrix's Brendan Sherry.
"People are using [the Net] to shift their mood, which is a mark of addiction, and it is eating into people's leisure times and social relationships. People type in a word and get 3,000 responses... the information is hard to tease out. That leads to frustration and stress and can lead to real physical problems such as headaches, eye strain or heart conditions. Most addictions rely on speedy rewards and that's why [searching] the Net stimulates addictive tendencies ... it is frustrating and addictive." - Psychologist Mark Griffiths on data addiction.
"We're not anti-Net but you can waste loads of time and still get nothing." - Paul Waddington, marketing manager at Reuters, which commissioned the data addiction research.
"Initially it was a work thing but it's so easy top get side-tracked. I would be on the Internet all day, staying behind for an hour after work, and then going home to use it. I began to spend less time with family and going out with friends." - 'Jess', a data addict.