Notable quotes about BlackBerry, Silicon Valley, cloud market and others in the software industry ecosystem

Yes, NSA will certainly impact the cloud market a bit. But don’t let the scary headlines fool you. CIOs don’t want to be in the on-premises security business. If there is a data breach, surely most CIOs would rather blame their CSP rather than an on-premises glitch. — Joe Panettieri, editorial director for The VAR Guy, MSPmentor and TalkinCloud

Olea’s device, the size of a typical smartphone, doesn’t require physical contact with the user or any user intervention. It enables secure, passive data acquisition and display and ultimately will enable user authentication based on the proven principle that each person possesses a unique biometric heart signature that can be used to verify a user’s identity without manual entry of user identity information, such as a PIN number, password or other code. — Frank Morese, founder and CEO, Olea

[A]ll in, 2013 was an embarrassment for the entire tech industry and the engine that powers it — Silicon Valley. Innovation was replaced by financial engineering, mergers and acquisitions, and evasion of regulations. Not a single breakthrough product was unveiled. — Christopher Mims, science and technology correspondent for Quartz and former freelancer writing for BBC and Wired

[With 2,500 tech startups already] Berlin has caught the public’s attention as a startup hub. We want to capture that momentum and drive Berlin’s economy forward. [We] will fully dedicate ourselves to becoming Europe’s leading startup hub. — Klaus Wowereit, Berlin’s mayor

But in a recent switch, customers for the first time said they do more banking via cellphones and other mobile devices than over the telephone or through the mail. The Internet is the favorite way to bank, cited as the preferred choice by 39 percent of respondents in a 2013 survey by the American Bankers Association. — Russ Wiles, writer for azcentral.com  

I will be happy to break even on a low-margin device business. That will help monetize our software services and allow us to provide an end-to-end solution. The jury is still out on this. I have been working the past 45 days with Foxconn on this deal to make sure we don’t lose money from the device business. — John Chen, CEO, BlackBerry