“Brands are either needed, loved or feared. I think that Microsoft is a needed brand and they have to act like one.”
High-tech überflack Bill Ryan, on Microsoft’s let-them-fear-me-as-long-as-they-use-Office PR strategy, Salon.com, 25 May 2000
BY “PEOPLE,” I MEAN STEVE BALLMER
“We’re just at the beginning of a phase that I guess you could call the ‘rational phase’ that was due to arise at some point. This is the phase where people are asking, ‘What does it have to do with profit?'”
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, on the pesky questions people might be asking about Microsoft’s red-ink-stained Internet ventures, Wired News, 24 May 2000
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T PUT THE BLAME ON YOU
“It was probably a mistake to have blamed Windows 2000.”
Novell CEO Eric Schmidt, who ignored strategic advice from his executive team to blame faltering profits on “the rain,” Financial Times, 23 May 2000
WE’RE HAPPIER JUST SENDING NASTYGRAMS
“We don’t have any interest in litigating our way through the Internet.”
Recording Industry Association of America president Hilary Rosen, on her organization’s all-bark-no-bite legal strategy against online trading of MP3s, The New York Times, 22 May 2000
FOR EXAMPLE, THOSE “HOT TEENAGE SLUTS!” EMAILS FROM PATRICK NAUGHTON
“I have come to believe that if anything will bring about the downfall of a company, or maybe even a country, it is blind copies of e-mails that should never have been sent in the first place.”
Disney chairman Michael Eisner, on the woes brought by email to corporate America, San Jose Mercury News, 19 May 2000
Ditherati: See the Digerati Dither, Daily 
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