“We beat them badly in middleware and I think they have even less of a chance to beat us in database; it’s a colossal mistake to take us on.”
- Oracle CEO Larry Ellison commenting on SAP’s database efforts, particularly the company’s highly touted development of in-memory technology. An SAP spokesperson said Oracle is “way behind” in in-memory technology. (eCRM Guide)
“That’s going to fall apart for them … Advertisers are not going to have that type of control over them. Apple wants total control over those ads.”
- Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, taking a shot at Apple’s iAd service for embedding advertisements in iPhone and iPad apps. (Reuters)
“You’ve seen these people — the people who say: The boss doesn’t get it. The company doesn’t get it. They know how to fix it. They have ideas, but no one cares, and no one allows them to try what they think is right. It’s crushing to the human spirit and potential.”
- Scott Cook, founder and chairman of Intuit, speaking at a conference on the topic of human potential. Cook suggested managers should allow workers to experiment and give them the goal of pleasing customers instead of the boss and rapidly test new ideas. “It stops the boss from being the judge — it ends that thumbs-up thumbs-down Caesar approach. Let the customer be the judge,” Cook said. (Fast Company)
Security has gone up by us knowing what’s out there, and by not preventing access, we don’t have folks trying to subvert policy to get what they want.”
- Ralph Loura, CIO at the Clorox Company, commenting on his company’s decision to give employees their choice of smartphone. (CIO Update)
“I think it’s healthy for the industry to compete and I think it makes us better. It’s not a given that we will succeed. We’ll see good competitors, it will be some that we see today and they’ll be some new ones — HP is just one of a number of competitors.”
- Cisco CEO John Chambers commenting on competition in the networking space during Cisco’s financial analyst day event this week. (Enterprise Networking Planet)
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