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It's funny. Laugh. Businesses IT

The 2005 IT Year In Quotes 142

Posted by Zonk from the i-am-not-a-crook dept.
PCM2 writes "InfoWorld is carrying a news story that sums up the year in quotes from IT executives. Lots of fun stuff to be had here, including former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers: 'I know what I don't know, and to this day I don't know technology and I don't know accounting and finance.' Also: 'We have so many rivals it's frightening. The week after next I will meet Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and I will [shake hands and]look down and see if I still have a hand.' - Sony's Stringer"
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The 2005 IT Year In Quotes More

The 2005 IT Year In Quotes

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  • Rare to get such honesty these days. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by otavo ( 929315 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:34PM (#14226206) Homepage
    "In our flash business, we had an awful quarter. ... It makes me puke to lose US$39 million." -- Hector Ruiz, chairman, president and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., clearly not a happy man. is my fav.

    It is rare to get such honesty these days.


    --------
    Intentional Web Initiative [intentionalweb.org]

  • They forgot a few (Score:1, Informative)

    by Psionicist ( 561330 )
    They forgot a few important ones:

    "I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." -- Steve Jobs

    "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" -- Thomas Hesse, Sony

    • Oops, of course I mean Steve Ballmer, not Jobs.

    • Re:They forgot a few (Score:5, Informative)

      by ZachPruckowski ( 918562 ) <zachary.pruckowski@gmail.com> on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:43PM (#14226255)
      "I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." -- Steve Jobs

      Um, wasn't that Steve Ballmer? I mean, there's a bit of a difference.

      • Re:They forgot a few (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Um, wasn't that Steve Ballmer? I mean, there's a bit of a difference.

        not really

      • "Um, wasn't that Steve Ballmer? I mean, there's a bit of a difference."

        Yeah there is. Like Ballmer could kill Jobs and his whole family just by sitting on them.

    • Re:They forgot a few (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Even my cancer has a low market share" - Steve Jobs (maybe not)
    • Modded down because of a typo? This is Slashdot for crying out loud, it's not like you have never been exposed to typos before. And you certainly know WHO actually said that famous bury-quote.

      Oh well, now when I've been modded down, I can see someone else here posted that Sony quote 10 minutes later and was modded insightful. Sigh.
      • Kind of a key typo there. Jobs =! Ballmer. Completely different companies, completely different people.... completely different expectations. Some typos ARE deadly.

      • Re:What the hell is this? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Saturday December 10, 2005 @12:01AM (#14226614) Journal
        It's Slashdot man, try to calm down a touch. I've had comments so insightful they could see the future modded troll and comments I wrote when pissed off at people modded +5 insightful. It depends who has mod points on the given day(after all if we're all getting them some days idiots must get them too).

        Look on the bright side at least you didn't have a topic go from +5 insightful to -1 insightful (damn over rated), like I have several times. I'm starting to wonder if I have made a few enemies modding me down when I get a high rated comment.

        Just remember idiots go for the easy mods and if they don't have anyone to lead them (notice it's always +5 -1 or just the default 1/2 when things are modded), they'll mod up the first thing they think is even remotely correct/funny (waste of mod points alert)/they agree with.

        Welcome to Slashdot, where the ???? always stands for get minions/followers

        • Look on the bright side at least you didn't have a topic go from +5 insightful to -1 insightful (damn over rated), like I have several times. I'm starting to wonder if I have made a few enemies modding me down when I get a high rated comment.

          I see a handful of bad mods here and there, but never 5 on a single comment.

          I don't know about your exact comments, but often wrong/ pointless comments are modded way up by idiots, then get read by a lot of non-idiots with mod points, and down they go.

        • Re:What the hell is this? (Score:4, Funny)

          by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday December 10, 2005 @04:09AM (#14227341)
          Look on the bright side at least you didn't have a topic go from +5 insightful to -1 insightful (damn over rated), like I have several times. I'm starting to wonder if I have made a few enemies modding me down when I get a high rated comment.

          Hey guys are you asleep or something?!? He's at like +5!!

          I thought we went over this last meeting, when you see a post by Turn-X Alphonse you mod it down! Now, considering there's eight of you on shift WITH mod points I should not be seeing a +5 here!

          Bloody n00bs, don't even know how to run a simple conspiracy...
        • The moderators happened to suck last night. My offering of one of the biggest tech related quotes of 2005, got moderated down as flamebait because this is Slashdot, and it no longer produces geek pop culture like it once did. When was the last time you saw Natalie Portman naked and petrified, or heard that Steven King had died?

          Do you Digg it?
          http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170771&cid= 14226613 [slashdot.org]

  • "2005" (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "The 2005 IT Year".

    I don't get it.

  • Here's one from drewzhrodague (Score:5, Funny)

    by drewzhrodague ( 606182 ) <drew&zhrodague,net> on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:42PM (#14226250) Homepage Journal
    Here's one from me, I came-up with this pretty much on the fly, but I guess it was in response to someone's question in a conversation: Vacation is the distance between jobs.

  • My 2005 IT Quote of the Year (Score:5, Funny)

    by rampant mac ( 561036 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:43PM (#14226254)
    Secretary sitting outside Balmer's Office...

    *sound of chair hitting the wall*

    "What the FUCK was that?"

  • "Screw the nano." (Score:5, Funny)

    by plover ( 150551 ) * on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:43PM (#14226256) Homepage Journal
    "Screw the nano. What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs?" -- Motorola's Zander letting his real feelings show about Apple Computer (Profile, Products, Articles) Inc.'s music player, which overshadowed Motorola's new Rokr phone during a product launch. (Sept. 23.)

    He's right! 640 songs ought to be enough for anyone!

    • Who listens to 1,000 songs?

      Sounds like someone who is a radio listener.

      Seriously though - what the fuck? I don't even listen to music much and my collection (just in MP3s) is about 24,000. The nano would cary ONE or TWO discographies of my favorite bands.
      • Ditto.

        I have an 80GB Neuros for a reason : Discographies on the go.

        Pick a band, aim the car and drive off.


        640 songs? My archaic laptop has more than that on it, and I use it once a month.

  • ESR such a dolt (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:45PM (#14226266)
    OK, mod this down... Eric Raymond is the biggest f*cking prick I've ever met. Microsoft's worst nightmare? I doubt Bill Gates is sitting at home having nightmares about the arrogant gasbag that is ESR. I met him a couple times so far. Each time he was condescending and rude. Against my better judgment I asked him to autograph a program guide. The fucker actually sneered at me and huffed. Contrast this to maddog hall or Wozniak or Linus (all of whom were absolutely pleasant and smiling). Shoot, even Richard Stallman who I'd thought would be an ass from all the stories I've heard was a nice guy, though really weird (and driven, and someone I'm glad fights for what he believes). But ESR, put a cork in him please.
    • "OK, mod this down... Eric Raymond is the biggest f*cking prick I've ever met. Microsoft's worst nightmare? I doubt Bill Gates is sitting at home having nightmares about the arrogant gasbag that is ESR. I met him a couple times so far. Each time he was condescending and rude."

      Yes, but did he pass the geek smell test? That's my litmus for nerdery. If he has that 3-day-old smell of farted burritos and stale Cheetos, he get my nod of approval. Otherwise, pfft, you're completely right.

    • Re:ESR such a dolt (Score:4, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Saturday December 10, 2005 @01:02AM (#14226839)
      But ESR, put a cork in him please.

      Careful dude, or he might get to feeling like putting a lead cork in you.

      You probably just shouldn't pay much attention to those "three letter" people anyway.

      KFG
    • I have never met him so ESR may indeed be a prick but I think he was talking metaphorically there. I think he was talking about the open source community in general.
      • So, why is he then painting himself as some sort of "open source leader"? What exactly has he done? Yes, he wrote The Essay. Woohoo! Can I lick your dingleberries now, ESR? He also wrote dozen or so crappy apps, and he still calls himself ubercoder. He also called himself "core Linux-kernel hacker", yet his efforts there are miniscule and/or failures (the new config-system he proposed? Crashed an burned).

        There are LOTS of other people I would give the title of "Open Source leader" to. Hell, there could be s
        • mmmm. He wrote a book that sold well and was influential. He wrote fetchmail which is in every linux distro so I think you have give the man some credit.

          He may be a gasbag but at least he is not a lying peice of shit gasbag like Ballmer or Gates are. I think you have to keep things in perpective here. Corporate america is full of gasbags who have done nothing useful in their whole lives. These people not only speak marketdroit gibberish but they would not know the truth if it bit them on the ass. Have you e

          • mmmm. He wrote a book that sold well and was influential.

            Yes he did. And that's just about only worthwhile thing he has done.

            He wrote fetchmail which is in every linux distro so I think you have give the man some credit.

            So he wrote some small application, big fucking deal. Do you see developers of Frozen Bubble proclaiming themselves as "Uberhackers"? How about developers of Kate, XMMS, NetHack, Kdevelop, Metacity, Procmail, X.org or Amarok? Each of those apps is a lot more impressive and complicated that F

  • A contender from Sony (Score:5, Interesting)

    by From A Far Away Land ( 930780 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:46PM (#14226272) Homepage Journal
    Mr. THOMAS HESSE (President, Sony BMG Global Digital Business): Most people, I think, don't even know what a Rootkit is, so why should they care about it?
    • That's a pearl. Also, most people, I think, don't even know what multiple sclerosis is, so why should they care if they have it?

    • The first time I read that quote, I thought "most people don't know what malignant melanoma is, so why should they care about it?"

    • Mr. THOMAS HESSE (President, Sony BMG Global Digital Business): Most people, I think, don't even know what a Rootkit is, so why should they care about it?
      Don't you mean "Sony BMG Global Digital Business (Profile, Products, Articles)"?

      Yeeesh. Stop that, InfoWorld.

  • The Real Jem; (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DNAspark99 ( 218197 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:47PM (#14226283)
    "What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds? Or were you going to stick to something easier, like talking Pope Benedict into presiding at a Satanist orgy?"
      -- Eric Raymond, one of the prime movers in the open-source movement, who also describes himself as "Microsoft's worst nightmare" after he received an e-mail pitch from Microsoft asking if he was interested in a job. (Sept. 9.)

  • And in other quotes: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:50PM (#14226305)
    'The week after next we will meet Sony's Stringer and we will [shake hands and] look down and see if he surreptitiously sticks something up our asses.' - Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
    • 'The week after next we will meet Sony's Stringer and we will [shake hands and] look down and see if he surreptitiously sticks something up our asses.' - Bill Gates

      Not me, Bill. Just you.- Steve Jobs

  • Missing quotes... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Tellarin ( 444097 )

    Hmmm, no quote about someone "going to fu*&%^$& kill" someone else?
    How sad.

  • Developer comment... (Score:5, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:53PM (#14226322)
    A developer once said: "I have no idea what the probelm is, but whatever it was is now fixed."

    Which kinda reminds of the line from the remake of The Thing: "I don't know what that was, but it's weird and it's pissed off."
    • I always liked the one bit from Little Monsters.

      "You know what happens when I get upset! That's it. I'm upset!"
      *thing pops out of his head and makes a noise before poping back in*
      "What the hell was that?"
      "I don't know. That's what happens when I get upset..."

  • How about this one.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @10:56PM (#14226335)
    "I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life." - Steve Ballmer at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo, 10/20/05

    I guess he means that he's dishonestly thown a chair.

  • Long Memories (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kmactane ( 18359 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @11:10PM (#14226400) Homepage
    "One of the most frustrating things that happens occasionally is you go into a client and they'll regale you with tales of atrocities and you say, 'When did this happen?' and they say 'Oh, 1993 or 94, I forget when' -- there's such a long tail to the memories of some of our clients." -- [CA CEO John] Swainson laying out the challenges he and his team face in trying to rebuild shattered customer confidence in the company formerly known as Computer Associates, now rebranded just plain CA. (Oct. 12.)

    Swainson's not kidding, there. Especially when a company does something really boneheaded, people don't forget, and they don't even forgive. (I think maybe people feel like forgiveness is for other humans, not for corporations.)

    I was on the phone with a recruiter earlier today, and mention of Claria (formerly Gator) came up. He said that it was really difficult to place people there. There were the occasional ones who just didn't recognize the name, but at least half his potential hires went "Claria? They're the people who used to be Gator! I'm not working there! Don't even send them my résumé."

    Note that these are people who are out of work, too. Some missteps are just so bad, you can never recover from them. Associating yourself with sleazy and excruciatingly annoying marketing methods is one of them. (Only time will tell if putting rootkits on your customers' computers is another.)

    • I was on the phone with a recruiter earlier today, and mention of Claria (formerly Gator) came up. He said that it was really difficult to place people there. There were the occasional ones who just didn't recognize the name, but at least half his potential hires went "Claria? They're the people who used to be Gator! I'm not working there! Don't even send them my résumé."

      This story, believe it or not, gives me hope. Thanks for sharing it. :)

    • I think rootkits from the Music Industry are going to probably become the touchiest subject so far when it comes to "bundled" malacious software. Granted, as you pointed out time will only tell on these products, but one must also recall why people will still purchase the product even if the name is slandered in their minds:Monopoly on access to the music they desire.

      Sure, an average ./ 'er will say "F'em , I'll just P2P my way to aural pleasure", but if you think about Joe Consumer, he/she will probably
    • Swainson's not kidding, there. Especially when a company does something really boneheaded, people don't forget, and they don't even forgive. (I think maybe people feel like forgiveness is for other humans, not for corporations.)

      My favorite (or actually least favorite) is when something goes wrong, you get it sorted and the damage was minor, yet the end users remember it forever, while overlooking everything that's gone right, or actually outstanding.

      Then, based upon these selective memories they elect to

    • Re:Long Memories (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually I was in a Royal Bank the other day and it was suggested that I open an account. I told the teller that I had once had an account with them and that they lost my business 20 years ago. A bank gets one shot per lifetime: there are many more banks than I will ever have bank accounts. Large companies with long term relationships like Royal Bank and CA need to keep this in mind: once you've lost a customer, they are not coming back--ever. For consumer products companies, the effect is less severe.

  • What do you know? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ezratrumpet ( 937206 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @11:18PM (#14226432) Journal
    "I know what I don't know, and to this day I don't know technology and I don't know accounting and finance." -- Bernie Ebbers, former WorldCom Inc. CEO, speaking in his defense, yes, you've got that right, in his defense during the WorldCom fraud trial.

    So, to become a CEO of a major communications company, you need not know technology, accounting, or finance. Did the board of directors just need a really good shortstop for the annual softball game against the engineers?

    • Re:What do you know? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kihaji ( 612640 )
      There is a reason companies hire smart people to do engineering, accounting, and finance. It's because they know what they are doing.

      CEO's are there to manage people, not tell Joe Beancounter that he forgot to carry a 1.

      • Re:What do you know? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 )
        CEOs set the strategy for the company. If they don't know technology, how can they decide where they should move their products? If they don't know finance, how can they know wether to lay off, hire more, buy or not buy this or that company, etc? They don't need to have phds in MechE, EE, CS, etc, but they need a working knowledge of the filds the company works in.
        • well, a CEO is also hired to make contacts at the top of the corporate food chain. Set up mergers, get government contracts, the ability to raise stock proces. Accounting, Finanace and technology could be handle by there respective Chiefs.
      • CEO's are there to manage people, not tell Joe Beancounter that he forgot to carry a 1.
        Is that what Bernie thought too? Didn't work out too good, what with the biggest chapter 11 in US history. And by the way it wasn't "1" they forgot to carry, it was $12e9.
      • CEO's are there to manage people, not tell Joe Beancounter that he forgot to carry a 1.

        In this case few zeros, too apparently.

    • Bernie is something like 6'4, so more likely needed a center on the football team or someone to dust the crystal chandeliers.
    • I actually saw this exchange on CSPAN between kenneth Lay and a congressman (not verbatim).

      "Did you know you had to report these earning in this way?"
      "No I did not"
      "Why not? That's just basic accounting"
      "I didn't know that's all"
      "When you went to school didn't they teach you that?"
      "I guess not".
      "What did you major in?"
      "I have an MBA".
      "YOu have an MBA and you didn't know a basic accounting principle? Where did you get you degree from?"
      "Harward business school".

      Man I fell down laughing. It wasn't a great adve

  • gotta be the rootkit quote (Score:3, Interesting)

    by YesIAmAScript ( 886271 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @11:51PM (#14226568)
    "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" - Thomas Hesse, President of Sony BMG's global digital business division.

    This is the quote of my year in my book.

  • This one has it all - sony, the queen, arrows, jam (Score:3, Interesting)

    by skeptictank ( 841287 ) on Saturday December 10, 2005 @12:13AM (#14226655)
    "A company as big as this one ... has to organize its priorities. In the U.K. we call it the law of raspberry jam: the wider the culture is spread, the thinner it is spread." -- Howard Stringer, as he became Sony (Profile, Products, Articles) CEO. He also talked about having tea with the queen and her complaint that Sony remote controls have "too many arrows." (June 23.)

    A female monarch older than most of the countries on the planet complaining about the remotes made by the first company to deploy rootkits in commercial products - that pretty much sums up the current state of humanity.

    • "made by the first company to deploy rootkits in commercial products"? Are you sure--I have found a rootkit on my Win 98 system here--it's called Media Player...

  • It's good to be underestimated -- BillG (Score:3, Informative)

    by heytal ( 173090 ) <hetal.rachNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday December 10, 2005 @12:52AM (#14226796) Homepage
    This one is from Bill's India Visit, which he concluded yesterday:

    Do you see any threat to Microsoft from companies like Yahoo! and Google which have entered the software market?

    The software space always has new companies coming into the domain and for the first time people seem to underestimate Microsoft. It is healthy competition and it is good to be underestimated once in a while.

    Full Interview Here [business-standard.com]
    • I'm still waiting for it, though: after listening for a year or so to people bitching about how much Microsoft sucks - and having the sort of mind which can't help but be impressed by an evil move of Machiavellian proportions - I want to see what happens when Microsoft re-sets its sights, grunts in anger, and hurls its 40b$ mass at the competition. It's bound to happen someday.

      I've actually been waiting for about three years now, I think. In which I figured that shifting to Linux was easier for my three yea
  • "The 2005 IT Year"
  • This shall be the year of desktop Linux!
  • "Software without source is like Russian Roulette without empty chambers"

    Sort of popped into my head (pun intended) after I heard about the SONY rootkit.
  • why Intel has anthropologists.

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