Stephen Baker Quotations

To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction - and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by.

Would I buy a cell phone for my 12-year-old?... No. I should have closer control over my child than that. He really shouldn't be in places where he needs to contact me by cell.

I always wished I had a chance to meet an NFL player or even a college player when I was growing up in Los Angeles.

I like working with kids. I just have a way with kids.

Even though I'm retired for some years now I still have something positive to say to kids. And they still listen.

People didn't stop spending money, they just spent it on things that complement their PCs.

This is the year you really put the stake in the ground.

Of all the toys available, none is better designed than the owner himself. A large multipurpose plaything, its parts can be made to move in almost any direction. It comes completely assembled, and it makes a sound when you jump on it.

When you get released from the NFL it's not a pleasant experience and I may have sulked for about two or three years. Then I was like, 'You know what? It's time to get back on the wagon.' I have nothing to be ashamed of.

The powerful collaboration of industry leaders HP and AMD continues to yield successful results, as demonstrated by the HP Special Edition L2000 Notebook PC. With its rich feature set and distinctive branding, this notebook has proven to be extremely popular throughout the North American retail market.

Would you let the sink back up for a week before you call the plumber? No, you'd get it fixed. It's the same thing with PCs. They're a much more integral part of our lives than they had been in the past.

The fact of the matter is the product you're looking for is always going to be cheaper, or there's going to be a better product in four months at the same price point. If you wait like that, you'll wait forever. You really have to make a decision that it's time to buy.

One reason to be optimistic is that consumer electronics products have moved from the occasional replacement product to being very integral as to how we live. Most of it's driven by the fact that electronics are more important to people today than in the past because we're delivering the products that people want.

No one aside from Apple has been able to crack that styling thing. There hasn't been a hue and cry for those highly styled, colored PCs.

No one aside from Apple has been able to crack that styling thing, ... There hasn't been a hue and cry for those highly styled, colored PCs.

New technologies at more affordable prices gave people a lot of incentive to get the necessities and a little something extra last year. It's the beginning of a trend that we should see continue through 2006, which will benefit not only the consumer, but the manufacturers as well.

There is more interest in these products. Pricing is more reasonable. They're getting smaller, more mobile.

Historically, November is the month when manufacturers and retailers vie for consumer dollars, simply to generate the most revenue at the start of the holiday buying season.

It is hard to imagine an all-encompassing Sony brand not participating in the DVD market, home audio and speakers, digital cameras, digital camcorders or even PCs,

Plasma prices continue to free-fall as good availability and wide acceptance of the products spur retailers and manufacturers to maximize their sales opportunities,

Part of the problem Sony has had in the past couple of years is that as the consumer electronics market has changed, ... A lot of it has been about lower prices and distribution and neither have been Sony's strong points.

I still think it's a bad idea and a bad fit.

You'll see a few times during Christmas time $399 notebooks,

While aggressive competition between retailers, OEMs and component suppliers as well as the holiday seasonal rush helped spur this (price) decline, ... The most prominent culprit was the rise of sub-$800 computers.

Typically, we see flat or slightly rising prices in December, because people are usually willing to pay more.

We haven't really given people a reason why they would want to own one yet.

The PC is much more of a mature product than it's ever been before, so it's much subject to the vagaries of the overall economy, ... When the economy slows and people retrench, they don't buy durable goods, and the PC is a big durable now.

The PC is a big durable goods item now. When the economy is slowing, people tend to reduce their spending on those kinds of things.

The government is telling us we have to do it. It is a huge freaking opportunity. To be thinking about other things is a waste of time.

Video is more complicated and takes up more bandwidth than audio. While the two are related to some extent, video will require much more from the marketplace in terms of infrastructure to support it than the audio market did.

It was the one-two punch needed to get consumers in the stores.

The thing about all these back-end connections is that there are so many of them. If you asked anybody, there are too many connections, too many options, and too many wires. People are looking for a solution that's more all-encompassing, that makes it easier to plug all that stuff in.

Sony has always wanted to go its own way. Sony needs interoperability. It might not be the best way to put it, but Sony needs to think differently.

Sony has always wanted to go its own way,

Prices are coming down, and they have the features and benefits people want.

Now consumers can buy the computer they want, not just the desktop they can afford.

Dell ( DELL ) is still the No. 1 PC company. I don't think that's likely to change anytime in the near future.

Despite the modest unit increase, August was not a blockbuster month for handhelds,

Apple has a pretty high bar to jump over,

At some point, absolute price is an issue.

This is a major milestone for AMD. This is the first time that a processor family, other than one manufactured by Intel, led the U.S. retail market.

This is a major milestone for AMD, ... This is the first time that a processor family, other than one manufactured by Intel, led the U.S. retail market.

They have been aggressive on notebooks, but their notebooks are getting a little old and are at a disadvantage with pricing. Their consumer notebooks are at risk the next few months until they get into new models.

You don't want to build too much into the TV. Consumers tend not to want too much built into their televisions, and the technology for a television doesn't move quite as fast as the technology for the external devices that are going to help you manage all your entertainment.

There need to be compelling reasons to replace your PC. And right now there aren't any.

It wasn't just big items that made a mark in 2005. Consumers went after MP3 players and digital cameras, creating a robust year for the two categories.

It makes it difficult for companies to differentiate themselves.

Consumers are looking at price first and then styling, ... They are hesitant to buy a machine with a 15-inch flat panel screen, which costs $900 to $1,000 itself, when they can buy a 19-inch traditional CRT monitor for less than $400.

The NPD Group's forecasting model is a unique combination of point-of-sale and consumer data, along with econometric modeling and the expertise of our industry analysts.

The notion that the digital imaging market is losing ground just isn't accurate. Overall, the short-term outlook is very good, and while the long-term outlook shows declines in sales, there is still great potential for the market.

Everybody is going into this Christmas season with very limited expectations, and anything they can throw at the marketplace to get people to go out and buy is going to be a positive.

Not everything is applicable or transferable, but you try to roll out as much as you can into the big stores.

It's never been easy being an Apple partner and it hasn't gotten any easier over the past few years. Apple has a long history of doing direct sales, and the fact is, they're actually pretty good at it. What you have to do as an independent is to look at the next set of things you can do. How can you out-service Apple when they already provide a high level of service?

I'm not sure you're ever going to see one company able to give you a seamless digital experience. The fact is it's all going to have to be interconnected and it's going to have to be offered by multiple companies and you, as the consumer, are going to have to be the integrator.

If you look at why people are not buying PCs, most of the things I've seen say it's not price, it's the usability, ... Consumers are asking themselves, 'Why do I need to upgrade?' So by reducing prices, I don't know that there is this huge unmet demand that's going to bring in a lot of new purchasers.

In the last couple of months, things have been relatively stable.

In some instances, companies are still just skimming the cream off of the early adopters and migrating into the masses.

If desktop prices were weak, it must have been that they didn't see enough trading up during the end of the holiday season.

You could see a lot less cable everywhere.

The guns are locked and loaded for some pretty heavy promotions.

The customer is the ultimate test. It's going to be pretty hard to explain it to a customer at the point of sale.

The market is a lot tougher right now. Prices are coming down pretty rapidly,