>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>GREAT PREDICTIONS BY EXPERTS
>
>"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 15 tons."
>--"Popular Mechanics," forecasting the relentless march
>of science, 1949.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
>--Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and
>talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data
>processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
>--The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall,
>1957.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"But what...is it good for?"
>--Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of
>IBM commenting on the microchip, 1968.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their
>home."
>--Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital
>Equipment Corp., 1977
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously
>considered as a means of communication. The device is
>inherently of no value to us."
>-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value.
>Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
>--David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for
>investment in the radio in the 1920s.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order
>to earn better than a `C,' the idea must be feasible."
>--A Yale University management professor in response to
>Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery
>service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
>--Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his
>face and not Gary Cooper."
>--Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role
>in "Gone with the Wind."
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research
>reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and
>chewy cookies like you make."
>-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting her company,
>Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way
>out."
>--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
>--Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
>----------------------------------------------------------
>"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the
>experiment. The literature was full of examples that said
>you can't do this."
>--Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique
>adhesives or 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"So we went to Atari and said, `Hey, we've got this amazing
>thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you
>think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just
>want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.'
>And they said, `No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard,
>and they said, `Hey, we don't need you; you haven't got
>through college yet.'"
>--Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get
>Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's
>personal computer.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between
>action and reaction and the need to have something better
>than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the
>basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
>--New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's
>revolutionary rocket work, 1921.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development
>across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a
>fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle
>development as an unalterable condition of weight
>training."
>--Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable"
>problem by inventing Nautilus.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and
>find oil? You're crazy."
>--Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his
>project to drill for oil in 1859.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high
>plateau."
>--Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University,
>1929.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
>--Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole
>Superieure de Guerre.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
>--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents,
>1899.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
>--Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut
>from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon."
>--Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed
>Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"640k ought to be enough for anybody."
>-- Bill Gates, 1981
>
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