Almost Perfect Quotes

“A WordStar User's Survivor's Guide to WordPerfect.”
― W.E. Pete Peterson, Almost Perfect: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation

“We learned a lot from watching Lotus do it the right way. They spent about half a million dollars developing 1-2-3, which was approximately the same amount of money we spent in developing the DG and PC versions of WordPerfect. They spent about two million dollars on their 1-2-3 roll-out; their ads, brochures, packaging, distribution, and public relations were all very professionally done. We, however, spent only $100,000 on our roll-out and generally looked like amateurs at everything we did. 1-2-3 would become the most popular spreadsheet as soon as it was released. We would need five years to become the most popular word processor.”
― W.E. Pete Peterson, Almost Perfect: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation

“I do not mean to say that customers should be ignored or treated shabbily. I sincerely believe in being cordial, fair, and honest with them. Their requests, comments, concerns, and needs should always be carefully considered and used as a valuable source of information. Their demands should, however, be kept in perspective. Sometimes they may not know what they want, sometimes they may change their minds, and sometimes they are not willing to pay for all that they want.”
― W.E. Pete Peterson, Almost Perfect: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation

“The knights performed their feats with very little planning and rarely did their post-feat paperwork, but they made up for these shortcomings with their fearlessness, their strength, and their energy. The king was also lucky to have a very good prime minister. The minister saw that taxes were collected, that the majority of the revenues were wisely spent to improve the kingdom, and that the excess monies were well managed. One day the prime minister died, and the king asked his bravest and most fearless knight to be the new minister. Unfortunately, the knight chosen for the job liked jumping on his white charger more than he liked caring for the affairs of the kingdom. He continued to gallop off to slay dragons whenever he had the opportunity and neglected tax collections, investments, improvements, and repairs. After only a short time, the king ran out of money, the peasants ran out of patience, and the kingdom collapsed.”
― W.E. Pete Peterson, Almost Perfect: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation

“Their strongest supporters had bonded to the program's quirks and problems and had come to believe that the difficulties were desirable.”
― W.E. Pete Peterson, Almost Perfect: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation