"What does Microsoft in the Ballmer era have in common with drug kingpin Avon Barksdale’s organization in The Wire? For years, both of them had the strongest package. They owned their territory, owned their market, owned their users. They were untouchable. Then times changed, bringing new competitors with new, intense products. Their own product went weak. But they couldn’t let go. “We got a weak product, and we holding on to prime real estate with no muscle,” Avon’s cerebral second-in-command, Stringer Bell, complains to him. For the Barksdale organization, the product was heroin and the real estate was the drug-ravaged Franklin Towers housing project. For Microsoft, the product is Windows and the real estate is the PC." - × × ×

Avon Barksdale, October 2004: “Marlo. Who the fuck is Marlo? An independent with no fucking support got all the prime real estate and we doing what exactly? Young boy ran us off the corner? ... Since when do we buy corners? We take corners.” - × × ×

Steve Ballmer, November 2004 (as quoted in a sworn affidavit by former Microsoft engineer Mark Lucovsky): “Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I’m going to fucking bury that guy. I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google.” - × × ×