Quotes about .NET from the Microsoft brain trust
"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, at a Microsoft .NET briefing day in July 2002
"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 2002
"And what that means to me is that I will get an alert when my Krispy Kreme doughnuts are ready and hot."
- Bill Veghte Corporate Vice President, at NetWorld+Interop 2002 following the announcement that Krispy Creme had decided to use Windows servers.
"Today, if you leave with one thing, I want you to leave with a clear sense of what we mean when we say .NET. A lot of people like flexibility in choices, so what are the choices here in terms of what .NET means? Well, we want the choices all to be exactly the same: Software to connect information, people, systems and devices."
- Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, at a Microsoft .NET briefing day in July 2002
".NET is a very broad thing. There is code in Windows. There’s code up on the Internet. There’s code running in all the different devices that connect up here that implement access to the .NET capabilities."
- Bill Gates, at the forum 2000 meeting where the .NET concept was introduced
"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
"Now, a lot of people have probably heard about Microsoft .NET and Microsoft TV is an important part of Microsoft .NET. When you look at Microsoft's broad vision about .NET, you have the notion of there being a lot of digital services for consumers to use."
- Microsoft Senior Vice President Jon DeVaan in June of 2001
"If you're trying to get at information and you've set up your favorites or your templates, that automatically shows up on not only your different PCs but any other devices as well, so when you go to your smart phone, it already knows all the things about you that would be useful to you to use that tool."
- Bill Gates, at the Office XP launch talking about .NET in Office XP
"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, in an October interview with News.com
"Now, there are other wins we get by moving to Windows .NET Server. I don't know if that rolls right off your tongue. It certainly does mine. Most importantly for us is replication for media, the ability to bring back a server for media rather than having to have a DC replicate over the wire."
- Microsoft Corporate Vice President & Chief Information Officer Rick Devenuti at MEC 2002 in October discussing Windows .NET Server.