Quotes.

APPLE COMPUTER chairman Gil Amelio on the corporate culture at Apple when he arrived: "[Apple] was a loose coalition, a collection of tribes rather than a modern industrial enterprise, and perhaps that is being generous." (Quoted in Computer Reseller News, 2/17/97)

APPLE COMPUTER chairman Gil Amelio on his decision to focus the company's resources on Web authoring, a market it currently dominates: "If content is king, then Apple is kingmaker." (Quoted in MacWeek, 3/17/97)

APPLE COMPUTER vice president Rick LeFaivre on his company's severe cutbacks in long-term R&D: "When your homestead is under attack from flaming arrows, you can't spend a lot of time planting corn." (Quoted in The Wall Street Journal, 3/31/97)

CREATIVE STRATEGIES president Tim Bajarin on Oracle chairman Larry Ellison's plan to buy Apple: "It's an interesting fantasy. Trial balloons are often filled with hot air." (Quoted in MacWeek, 3/31/97)

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. vice president Deborah Miller on her company's decision to get rid of its automated customer inquiry system: "We fired the computer and replaced it with highly trained people, for more personalized and more efficient service." (Quoted in The Boston Globe, 12/7/96)

MORGAN STANLEY analyst Chuck Phillips on Microsoft's SQL Server sales strategy: "Microsoft's main selling tactics revolve around three issues: Price, ease of installation, and dinner with Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates." (Quoted in Information Week, 2/3/97)

MICROSOFT chairman Bill Gates on his company's promise to provide the same "zero administration" costs as network computers: "We will do zero administration on today's machines, with no new hardware or new applications." (Quoted in Information Week, 1 1/4/96)

NETSCAPE senior vice president Marc Andreessen on Microsoft's promise to reduce PC support costs: "The only way to lower the cost of ownership is to take Windows off the desktop." (Quoted in Computer Reseller News, 3/24/97)

AUTHOR Michael Crichton on a Microsoft ad that says, "It's hard to tell where the desktop ends and the Internet begins": "This is the definition of psychosis." (Quoted in The Wall Street Journal, 3/26/97)

ORACLE CORP., in a billboard that pokes fun at a lawsuit initiated by rival database developer Informix: "Informix: Hiring lawyers experienced in suing programmers. Oracle: Hiring experienced programmers. A public service announcement from Oracle Corp." (Quoted in Computer Reseller News, 3/31/97)

MICROSOFT chairman Bill Gates on why he doesn't see Java as a threat: "No one knows what language our applications are written in. And while the tools business is a nice one, it's not a big business for us." (Quoted in Computer Reseller News, 3/31/97)

INTEL chairman Andy Grove on the problems of business planning in fast-moving new markets: "When Columbus sailed across the Atlantic, he didn't have a business model." (Quoted in Business Week, 2/24/97)

IDEALAB! founder Bill Gross on his new venture, a loosely structured incubator for Internet entrepreneurs: "I think people are motivated the most when they have unbelievable control of their destiny." (Quoted in Forbes, 4/7/97)