There’s a tactic in sailboat racing whereby a competitor who is trailing can catch up on a downwind leg by positioning to catch the wind behind the lead boat. This is precisely the position Oracle holds in the in-memory database race and precisely the tactic Oracle CEO Larry Ellison employed on Sunday night by announcing the Oracle 12c In-Memory Option during his kickoff keynote address at this week’s Oracle OpenWorld conference. — Doug Henschen, executive editor, InformationWeek
No one really imagined that doctors would use tablets as they made their rounds. The skeptics who say ‘no one would ever use that’ [about smart watches] are some of the same people who said they would never use a laptop without a keyboard. — Jason Jacobs, CEO, Runkeeper
We’ve been a great company for years. We will be a great company for many more years. — Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft, in his farewell speech to Microsoft employees
Spend 10 minutes talking to, listening to, or reading about anyone in the startup community, and you’ll almost inevitably hear the word “disrupt” in one of its many forms. They’re going to disrupt the industry. The company is disruptive. It’s a classic disruptor. The startup and tech worlds have taken a perfectly useful word and turned it into something devoid of meaning … now bandied about to describe almost any effort to alter or improve a business…. The word is so closely identified with startup culture that it’s now used in just about every situation. Something can be better, cheaper, and more convenient without being disruptive. — Max Nisen, strategy reporter, Business Insider Australia