Category Archives: Quotes

Quote of the day

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From a CNN report on Microsoft’s latest results…

Microsoft, which in addition to Xbox 360, recently released its new SQL Server 2005 database software, is expected to see a pickup in growth thanks to these new products as well as the upcoming release of Microsoft’s long-awaited new operating system, known as Vista, and the latest version of Office: Office 12.

“I’m excited about the second half of the year,” said Michael Cohen, director of research with Pacific American Securities. “That’s when we’ll likely see Vista and Office 12, some of the most significant releases in the company’s history. I think that will lead to a PC upgrade cycle in the second half of the year.”

Translation: if you want to run the next version of Windows, you will also need to buy a new PC! Verily, Moore’s Law giveth and Bill Gates taketh away. It’s almost enough to make one feel sorry for Windows users. But resist the temptation: they only have themselves to blame.

Quote of the day

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“About two thousand kilometres.”

Lieut-General Dan Halutz, Israel’s Chief of Staff, on being asked how far Israel would go to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.

Source: Economist, 21 January, 2006, page 53.

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We think the internet isn’t a web page or a destination for your PC any more. It’s an infrastructure and a delivery vehicle for communications and experiences in entertainment. It’s about ease of use and open platforms that connect the internet to any device that you will be manufacturing.

Terry Semel, Yahoo Chairman, speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, January 5, 2006. (Reported in Financial Times January 7 2005.)

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We’ve learned a valuable lesson, I hope, from the music industry: if somebody doesn’t give people what they’re looking for, then someone else will fill that void. If I hear a song on the radio, they don’t say, “Oh, and in four months you can buy the CD.” Right? They say, “Hey, download it to your iPod today!”

Todd Wagner, CEO of 2929 Entertainment, the company (cofounded by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban) that’s experimenting with the “simultaneous release” program for movies. From an interview with David Pogue of the New York Times.

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“My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does.”

Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

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“I don’t know anybody under 30 who has ever looked at a classified advertisement in a newspaper.”

Rupert Murdoch, quoted in the Financial Times.

Well, he may have misunderstood the Internet the first time around, but he certainly gets it now. News Corporation has spent $1.5bn so far this year on MySpace.com, a fast-growing online community, and IGN Entertainment, a games and content site, Murdoch responded to the recent claim by Martin Sorrell, a leading advertising honcho, that some traditional media owners were “panic buying” new media assets. Quoth the Digger:

“There’s no panic, and there’s certainly no overpayment. It was a very careful strategy to go for the two biggest community sites for people under 30. If you take the number of page views in the US, we are the third biggest presence already.”

Quote of the day…

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… comes from a nice NYT profile of Lynne Truss, author of Eats, shoots and leaves, the best-selling book on the importance of the apostrophe.

Asked if he had any insight into the book’s popularity, Andrew Franklin, whose tiny company, Profile Books, published it in Britain, appeared to give the question extended thought. “I have a theory,” he finally said. “It’s very sophisticated. My theory is that it sold well because lots of people bought it.”

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If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Google’s true corporate mission was to organize the world’s wealth, not its information.

John Paczkowski, writing in Good Morning, Silicon Valley about the news that Google’s income increased seven fold over the last year.

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The Conservatives claim to have around 300,000 members, Labour about 200,000 and the Liberal Democrats 70,000. All of them are eclipsed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which has 1,049,392 binocular-wielding enthusiasts.

The Economist, 24 September 2005, p.35.