Month: July 2001

“Our attitude has always been that this is not a fashion thing. We just have to figure out how the Internet is going to benefit our base businesses.”

Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino, on giving her Webheads a continued license to bleed money, The Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2001

“What we’ve gone through in the last several years has caused some people to question ‘Can we trust Microsoft?'”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who’s no doubt just delusional enough to think that’s a rhetorical question, TheStreet.com, 26 July 2001

“Let me be clear — Microsoft has no beef with open source.”

Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s appointed open-source hatchet-man, displaying a knack for transparent disingenuousness, RedHerring.com, 27 July 2001

“The Internet is an important cultural phenomenon, but that doesn’t excuse its failure to comply with basic economic laws. The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists.”

Telecom consultant Thomas Nolle, somehow conflating dot-com business models with packet-switched networks (and we can’t wait to hear what he thinks of those open-source communists), Los Angeles Times, 26 July 2001

“The lesson here is you can’t expect users to learn. There’s too much fun going on out there on the Internet.”

Hurwitz Group analyst Pete Lindstrom, on the insidious appeal of the Sircam virus — perhaps the most amusing peer-to-peer file-sharing application developed to date, InfoWorld, 24 July 2001