"One question might be, and I'll be as direct as I can be about this, what is .Net? Unlike Windows, where you could say it's a product, it sits in one place, it's got a nice little box. In some senses, it's a very good question."
-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ,at a Microsoft .Net briefing day in July

"We don't have the user-centricity. Until we understand context, which is way beyond presence -- presence is the most trivial notion of context."
-Microsoft chairman Bill Gates ,on the same topic at the same briefing

"Our biggest problem was policing the use of .Net. Things like .Net Enterprise Servers. That's a great example of where the confusion came from, because it looked like we were slapping .Net on a bunch of random products."
-Charles Fitzgerald, general manager of Microsoft's platform strategy group, in August on ZDNet News

"It's about connecting people to people, people to information, businesses to businesses, businesses to information, and so on. That is the benefit."
-Steve Ballmer, trying again, in an October interview with News.com