Predicting the future is easy … getting it right is the hard part

Every new year, the predictions flow.

Before you let them have an enormous impact on your attitude or future plans consider some of these expert predictions:

1977

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” – Ken Olson, president chairman and founder, Digital Equipment Corporation

1992

“The idea of a personal communicator in every pocket is a 'pipe dream driven by greed'.” — Andy Grove, CEO of Intel.

1995

“I predict the internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” – Robert Metcalfe*, Founder of 3Com

1998

“By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”– Paul Krugman, Nobel Prizewinning economist

2004

“Two years from now, spam will be solved.” – Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

2007

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” – Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft

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* In 1995, Metcalfe argued that the Internet would suffer a "catastrophic collapse" in the following year; he promised to eat his words if it did not. During his keynote speech at the sixth International World Wide Web Conference in 1997, he took a printed copy of his column that predicted the collapse, put it in a blender with some liquid and then consumed the pulpy mass. He had suggested having his words printed on a very large cake, but the audience would not accept this form of "eating his words."

Source: Wikipedia