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2006: Top 10 Memorable Quotes
Another year, another spate of soundbites. We offer you 10 of the best
December 27, 2006
4 Min Read
It's that time of year again, when we at Byte and Switch scan articles from the 12 months past for memorable quotes from the lips of industry moguls, mavens, and mavericks.
We think the statements below illustrate events and trends of 2006 better than thousands of words of reporting. (Well, maybe. Sometimes.)
Here's our Top 10 list, in order of impact:
No. 10: "You can't hide that ball anymore." -- Bob Brennan, COO of Iron Mountain, in reference to the compliance challenges users face.
Well said, Bob. And with the improvements at Iron Mountain, folk won't be able to claim Iron Mountain lost, sold, or burned that dang ball, either.
No. 9: "We just spent $4.1 billion to acquire StorageTek. It doesn't make sense for us to sell it off." -- David Yen, EVP Storage, Sun Microsystems.Now that should silence those rumor-mongers!
No. 8: "[T]he Overland and Dell teams remained fully engaged and up to this moment had been actively working together to achieve manufacturing readiness of the products. Consequently, we are extremely disappointed by this decision." -- Chris Calisi, ex-CEO of Overland Storage, on the defection of Dell as OEM partner in October.
This quote goes with one made by an analyst to Calisi during a call to discuss the OEM woes: "If I was back in grad school I would use you as a case study in misplaced optimism -- staying independent in a world of Goliaths. But good luck."
No. 7: "One of the reasons we haven't been making a big deal of this is we are not at the stage where we want to unveil specifics of CDP." -- Sean Macnew, director of Symantec's CDP and replication product group, on Symantec's purchase of Revivio in November.
Another reason is that it wasn't a big deal: Symantec paid about $20 million for Revivio, which had $55 million in VC funding. Built into the fire sale cost to Symantec will be expenses related to supporting Revivio's customers. All 12 of them.
See Symantec Swallows Revivio and 2006 Storage Winners & Losers .
No. 6: "I'd say Yahoo this quarter was slightly below the norm. Their big infrastructure update is not yet underway." -- Network Appliance CEO Dan Warmenhoven, when asked during last month's earnings report to characterize sales to NetApp's largest customer.
That gorilla behind the curtain? He's just visitin.'See NetApp Paints Rosy Picture.
No. 5: "There are a lot of good features, but it's sort of a forklift upgrade." -- Joanne Kossuth, CIO of Olin College of Engineering on Microsoft's Vista and Office 2007 offerings.
This may prove to be the understatement of 2006. Well, you don't get somethin' for nothin', eh?
No. 4: "We have replaced storage as the core of our universe with information." -- Joe Tucci, chairman, president and CEO of EMC, on the firm's last quarterly earnings call.Replaced storage with what, exactly? Well, no matter. Next year we'll see whether EMC can safely digest the 22 companies it's gorged during three years of this grandiose scheme.
No. 5: "InfiniBand is a heavy, blunt instrument -- its not yet a polished weapon." -- Gautham Sastri, CEO, Terrascale.
The company's PR died of bludgeoning, the coroner said.
No. 3: "Greg Reyes is innocent, and if necessary, we will prove his innocence in a court of law." -- Richard Marmaro, attorney for Greg Reyes, on the occasion of Reyes being charged with fraud.
We're waiting.
No. 2: "I'm optimistically predicting you will see a different McData exiting 2006 than you are seeing now." -- John Kelley, CEO, McData Corp., during the company's lackluster quarterly report in May.
Give that optimist another $1.1 million!See McData Trails Switch Rivals and Kelley Gets 1.1M Reasons to Stay.
No. 1: "What began as an effort to prevent the leaks of confidential information from HP's boardroom ended up heading in directions that were never anticipated." -- Mark Hurd, CEO, Hewlett-Packard.
What exactly did you anticipate, Mark?
— Editors, Byte and Switch
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD)
Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL)
EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC)
Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ)
Iron Mountain Inc. (NYSE: IRM)
McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA)
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)
Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP)
Overland Storage Inc. (Nasdaq: OVRL)
Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW)
Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC)
Terrascale Technologies Inc.
Yahoo Inc.
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