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20 Years of Bill Gates Predictions
NewsCloud writes "The Seattle PI's Microsoft Blogger Todd Bishop asks "How does Gates shape up as a seer?" None strike me as particularly clairvoyant, but the missed ones are winners: "I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time." and "Two years from now, spam will be solved." But in fairness to Gates, for many years Microsoft's tagline was "a PC on every desktop and in every home.""
> . . for many years Microsoft's tagline was "a PC on every desktop and in every home."
Wasn't that Apple's idea? As I understand it, that's why they called the company "Apple" - it was supposed to be something every kid should have on his/her desk.
Windows is sorta the next generation of OS/2 anyway. OS/2 was a joint development between IBM and Microsoft; when IBM and Microsoft parted ways, IBM got the old code and Microsoft got the new code. Windows NT started out with the name 'OS/2-NT' internally at Microsoft, despite the fact that many, many revisionist historians love to leave this point out.
My blog
I remember when this quote and a related Comdex video came out ("OS/2 will be the operating system of the 90s"), and I still have a copy of the video somewhere. People always laughed at this one and say that Bill was a turn-coat to OS/2, but, you know, he was right.
/ reskit/os2comp.mspx
I was a die-hard OS/2 fan, and still have a copy of it running on a virtual machine. I don't give a nod to Bill easily. However, MS worked with IBM on OS/2 version 1, before abandoning it to go with the monster Windows was becoming. MS took their work and used it to shape Windows NT, and everything derived from NT still has an OS/2 heart.
For evidence of this, just check out:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/ntwrkstn
in its early years before Windows even existed Microsoft indeed said "A PC on every desk and in every home" At later points in time they added bit about windows, and even later said they wanted a server in every home.
The Mafia is a myth and legend, for one. It's a bunch of otherwise independent crime organizations that sometimes scratch each other's backs and other times claw at each other's eyes. The most cooperation one can usually expect is that it's mutually beneficial for both sides in a dispute to avoid the ire of the authorities and that it's sometimes convenient for two crime lords to split rackets on geographical or crime-type boundaries.
The MafIAA is much more organized. This is partly because they haven't yet been proven to be doing things illegally, which allows them to communicate and plot as openly as they do. Many of the tactics do seem like racketeering, and there's chatter in the courtrooms and the press that some counter-suits are trying to make a point of that.
More directly to you question, though, protection payments, strong-arm tactics, threats, trying to bar outsiders from competing, and divvying up markets among member organizations are all time-tested mob tactics. If "The Mafia" is upset about anything involving the comparison, it's probably that the MPAA and RIAA are less romantic of a notion.
People, you really need to check your history! Microsoft may have borrowed from their co-development of OS/2, but they developed with a different kernel. I can't believe how many times this MYTH got repeated!
IBM made OS/2 a much better product after the split. If you ask for recommended versions, you'll get OS/2 1.3 for the command line version and post OS/2 2.0 for the graphical version.
Microsoft leaving OS/2 was the best thing that ever happened to OS/2 from a technical standpoint, but not from a marketing standpoint.
"..You want a seer? Try Jules Verne. Now that guy was pretty damn amazing..."
You want a seer who was right? Try H G Wells.
Monsieur Verne suffered from a lack of vision. He just looked at current technology and 'expanded' it. He knew no physics, and didn't see the need to be accurate, so things like his 'From the Earth to the Moon' ignore the obvious acceleration problems of being shot out of a gun. Or the practicalities of being 'snatched' by an earth-grazing comet!
Much of his minor stuff is frankly incomprehensible - 'Master of the World' says that travelling at 200 mph makes you invisible, for instance. And he was so tied to the mid 1800s politics - Germans were alternately good (when they were in competition with the British) and then bad (after 1871!). Everyone was a stereotype.
Wells, however, had his physics dead to rights. He invented whole new genres of Sci-Fi - Time Travel, The Invisible Man, amazingly accurate social predictions in 'Anticipations' and 'The Shape of Things to Come'. When he did space travel he invented the 'warp drive' with his 'Cavorite' material which rejected gravity.
The 'War of the Worlds' invented the entire 'alien battle' genre that America loves so much. Did you know that his predictions of the 'Atomic Bomb' inspired Szilard to invent the 'chain reaction? Wells' description really was that close!
He did Bio-engineering with 'The Island of Dr Moreau'. Really there was no limit to his vision. But I presume I hardly need to list the rest - Slashdotters must all have copies of all of his books off Gutenburg. If they haven't, I don't think you can see any SF movie which doesn't relate back to his work in some way.
"Microsoft and IBM then had a falling out and both companies went their own ways."
I believe MS went their own way first. IBM and MS then had a falling out partly because IBM thought MS's OS/2 code was crap, and partly because MS pushed Windows instead.
OS/2 was also important to Microsoft as a way to beat Lotus 1-2-3, the dominant spreadsheet at the time. MS developed the Windows version of Excel while it was developing Windows, and publically spreading the line that OS/2 was the way to go. Lotus put their efforts into the OS/2 version of 1-2-3. When MS revealed Windows, Excel was ready to go, and 1-2-3 wasn't.
As the article states, Bill Gates never made that comment. It's just more misinformation from people who see him as a favorite target.
The networking of the early Macintosh (1986-ish) was DEFINITELY superior in cost to 10base5
Ethernet (does anyone else remember thickwire?), and sold LOTS of Laserwriter II printers
as networked office print centers. I'm still using Laserwriters on an Ethernet/Localtalk bridge.
LocalTalk serial adapters ran at 239 kbaud and had circa 500 meter cable-length limits.
It worked on a straight Mac serial port, or addon cards for ISA PC slots.
For nearly a decade, the 'killer app' for Macintosh computers was the laser printer driver.
Apple made good money on it.