The best IT quotes of 2007

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By Matthew Sparkes and Stuart Turton

Posted on 17 Dec 2007 at 13:31

"So the whole, 'We have a list and we're not telling you', itself should tell you something. Don't you think that if Microsoft actually had some really foolproof patent, they'd just tell us and go, "nyaah, nyaah, nyaah!"

Erm, not really, but we would really love to see Steve Ballmer try.

6. Steve Ballmer
Speaking of Steve, Microsoft's CEO has had a cracking year, essentially taking a pop at anything that happened to meander into his peripheral vision. Among his growls he saved one of his best for Google, somehow spinning an admission of failure into a swipe at its rival.

"Our Windows Live Hotmail doesn't generate much ad revenue, so we've had to put a portal around it, because the traffic it brings is very valuable, but it's not very easily monetised. Google's had the same experience, even though it reads your email and we don't."

Subtle, Steve.

7. Steve Ballmer... again
After Ballmer's previous criticism of Google, the following admission seems even stranger. After stating Microsoft's intention to establish a smallish country, print stamps will Bill Gates' head on and eventually dominate internet search, he then promptly admitted it was loitering somewhere in third place.

"There's the world of search and advertising, where Google is the leader and we are an aspirant, we're number three."

Full marks for frankness, Steve, but research at the time showed that you were actually fourth.

8. Mike Davidson
When US presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain, decided to bring his campaign bang up-to-date with a MySpace profile, he naively borrowed some images hosted on someone else's server to bulk it out. Irked by this, the owner of the images took a rather novel revenge and made one or two... alterations.

"Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage... particularly marriage between passionate females," the image said.

The man behind the alteration, Mike Davidson, would later describe the jape as "the immaculate hack."

9. John Hemming MP
The loss of 25 million child benefit records on a couple of CDs was an open-goal for opposition politicians. But hand the match ball to Liberal MP, John Hemming, who said the government couldn't even be trusted with CD burners and warned of worse to come.

"Normally what happens is that we close the door after the horse has bolted, but in this case we're leaving the door open for more horses to bolt."

He wasn't wrong, was he?

10. BBC
And we conclude with a festive shorty. The much maligned iPlayer is coming out of beta on Christmas day, and while anybody else might worry about the potential chaos caused by millions of people with shiny new laptops trying to download reruns of "Delia Does Christmas", all at once, the BBC isn't concerned at all. Because it's Christmas you see, the most wonderful time of the year and all that. And what did the BBC tell us when we asked if its support staff would be foregoing their turkey in case of a Christmas rush?