Samuel J. Palmisano

“If we overregulate, over control, impose too many burdens and too much bureaucracy - or if we do it across the board, without taking into account the differences among businesses and their relative impact on society - that could make people risk-averse and dampen the entrepreneurial spirit.”

“Tech never comes back the same.”

“Smarter is always the answer.”

“I think everybody at IBM knows the early 1990s disaster, and it's in our fabric that you cannot miss the ship.”

“Enterprise is hard work. You have to integrate the client with the optimized systems of all the servers and software.”

“IBM isn't investing billions of dollars every year into research and development - and winning more patents than our top 10 competitors combined for more than a decade - as an academic exercise. But research is now being driven much more by what people need rather than just by what is possible.”

“From now on, the technology companies that succeed will be those that have developed skills at listening and a sophisticated understanding of their customers' industries.”