Heard and Overheard

"We thought we'd give it a whirl. I didn't graduate from college, and that has held me back, but I do know that if you can pay more for something or pay less for something, you try to pay less." --Larry Ellison, chairman and CEO, Oracle, on why he originally offered so little for PeopleSoft "The era of the elephant-size deal is dead." --Keith Raffel, founder and chairman, UpShot "No one ever got fired for buying Siebel, they just got fired for implementing it." --Roger Siboni, chairman, E.piphany "In the end what the customer is buying is an experience." --Alan McCollough, chairman, president, and CEO, Circuit City Stores "Products are just the beginning. We need to make sure that the buying experience, out-of-the-box experience, and support experience is really working. --Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, imaging and print group, Hewlett-Packard "The CRM market wants to buy fast, easy, affordable, and local." --Kevin Myers, vice president of research and business development, CRM Division, Best Software "There's a new level of awareness of outsourcing, [although] 88 percent of companies still insource." --Paula Kruger, president, CRM division, EDS