Month: February 2001

“If Napster is shut down, it’s because, even though our users are willing to pay, the record companies don’t want to take their money.”

Napster interim CEO Hank Barry, whose billion-dollar offer to the music industry was dismissed as a few orders of magnitude too small, The New York Times, 21 February 2001

“We spent the past year reforming ourselves back into a profitable, economic, value-added, slower-growing, more humble, more conservative entity.”

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, whose ego is the only thing at headquarters that has yet to be right-sized, Business Week, 21 February 2001

“There will be no new architecture for computing for the next 1,000 years.”

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, estimating the length of time it will take his programmers to debug his company’s e-business software, News.com, 21 February 2001

“Oracle is up to its same old tricks, trying to encourage people to buy its software using bogus claims. People need to be made aware of this.”

Microsoft manager Barry Goffe, on Oracle’s unwelcome intrusion into Redmond’s monopoly on vague verbiage, eWeek, 20 February 2001

“Windows XP … is the system that my mom deserves.”

Microsoft executive Jim Allchin, revealing that Windows’ user-surly interface is the result of deep-seated family resentments, CNNdotCOM, 17 February 2001