Quotes of the Week,June 23-27
"It seems to me that, under your analysis, it could potentially be criminal to engage in indecent speech on a public street corner in the presence of minors." - US Supreme Court's Justice William Kennedy criticising the case for the Communications Decency Act
"They said they would deregulate but they haven't. I don't think they expected Net telephony to appear as quickly as it has and, with phone-to-phone [Internet-based telephony] here, it really poses a serious threat to PTT." - IDT's Sarah Hofstetter on countries that ban Net telephony.
"I find that to be a surprising number," ON Technology's Phil Neray on 72 per cent of business Web users visiting porn sites.
"One public sector buyer told me he wants to move to Net PCs because he's had so many problems with theft and Net PCs will be less desirable for resale." - Viglen's Diran Kazandjian on a new sales pitch for the Net PC.
"From our experience, it would appear that the certification bodies sell their schemes on the premise of fear rather than hope. Most use the sales pitch, 'don't you think your product will look inferior to the competition if you don't sign up?'" - Sophos's Paul Ducklin.
"Microsoft only joined to find out more about the enemy. My fear is that Microsoft will try to hijack the Forum. We want to send out a unified message about Java and Microsoft should not be a member of this Forum. Their strategy is to split Java. You'll get a Forum view and a Microsoft view." - Netscape's Sam Sethi on the Java Forum's rocky start.
"It's a logical move for firewall vendors to get closer to router and network management companies. The future for standalone firewalls is very fragile." - FTP Software's Peter Simkin on Cisco's purchase of the Global Internet Software Group.
"This [merger] doubles Compaq's feet on the street from around 4,000 to 8,000 customers. We will be taking a lot of Tandem technology into our server range" - Compaq's Vesey Chrichton on the Tandem buy.
"I find it quite a strange move. Three months ago their said they would never go flat-rate. They're targeting the price-oriented user and I'm sure it will attract a certain kind of customer but £16.95 [AOL's 'Unlimited' usage plan] is a very high price for the average customer who uses the service for seven to ten hours per month." - CompuServe's Martin Turner knocks AOL's flat-rate pricing.