MONOPOLIZE DIFFERENT

“A certain percentage of customers are going to choose the Mac platform. I certainly want Microsoft to be selling those customers productivity software rather than somebody else.”

Tim McDonough, an executive at Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, on his mission to make sure Microsoft’s office software monopoly outperforms its operating system monopoly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 30 January 2004

THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT

“The CIOs who buy Itanium are more conservative than Pat Buchanan.”

Future former Intel spokesman Bill Kircos, chalking up slow 64-bit chip sales to retrograde customers, not product flaws, News.com, 29 January 2004

ASK NOT WHAT FRIENDSTER CAN DO FOR YOU

“People who don’t know each other very well are trying to develop fast and facile friendships. It’s really, really ironic that software for automating social processes is making interactions worse.”

Blogger and novelist Cory Doctorow, unknowingly observing that social networking startups have perfectly realized the aims of American society, Wired News, 28 January 2004

THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL MY CUSTOMERS MAKES ME STRONGER

“To say a system is secure because no one is attacking it is very dangerous.”

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, on the upside of the flood of viruses his software has enabled, News.com, 27 January 2004

I DON’T GET PISSED OFF FOR LESS THAN $100,000 A YEAR

“Imagine what it took for Microsoft to piss off so many people that they’re all willing to work night and day without pay just to bring that company down.”

Bruce Perens, the open-source activist who tried and failed to bring Microsoft down while getting a regular paycheck from Hewlett-Packard, ZDNet, 23 January 2004