Quotes by Alan Yates

“I thought it was a good way for me to say thanks to him, ... He left me every piece of musical gear he ever bought. ... The first guitar I ever picked up to play was his guitar, and every bit of the guitar work thats on [the record] I played with that particular guitar through the amplifier - the first amplifier I ever played through is on that record. Thats very significant to me.”

“we talked about doing something along the lines of a record label together, maybe me working as the artist/producer while he provided more of the business mind to things, as well as some of his creative input. And here we are.”

“They come in at the beginning of the week, we evaluate them, we put them in a band, we work with them one on one, we get them on and off the stage and teach them how to work together as a band,”

“This is where the rock stuff comes through, ... If somethings happening or about to happen, its gonna come through Smiths. Thats probably one of the reasons I gravitate to hanging out around here, just to kind of keep my ear to the ground. Theres that rock energy here.”

“As we look to the future, and all of these data types become increasingly intertwined, locked-in formats like OpenDocument are not well suited to address these varying data types -- as the proposed policy itself acknowledges. ... We would advise the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to do a thorough evaluation of the costs and benefits before making such a major shift.”

“public records management is to force a single, less functional document format on all state agencies.”

“The proposed policy is inconsistent with ongoing dialogues Microsoft is having with other Massachusetts state agencies about how Microsoft products can best meet their data and records requirements for a variety of data types - ranging from traditional documents to pictures, audio, video, voice, voice-over-IP, data, database schema, web pages, and XML information. As we look to the future, and all of these data types become increasingly intertwined, locked-in formats like OpenDocument are not well suited to address these varying data types - as the proposed policy itself acknowledges. Its this need for choice and flexibility that led Microsoft to design Office in a way that supports any XML schemas that a customer chooses, a capability lacking in less functional formats.”

“As we look to the future, and all of these data types become increasingly intertwined, locked-in formats like OpenDocument are not well suited to address these varying data types - as the proposed policy itself acknowledges. Its this need for choice and flexibility that led Microsoft to design Office in a way that supports any XML schemas that a customer chooses, a capability lacking in less functional formats.”

“We were surprised by the narrowing of the approach to openness, ... There are many other different options that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has here that many other countries and states are doing.”

“the Office 12 formats pay special attention to compatibility with older document versions, [and] other formats do not concern themselves with this important issue.”