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.""

Comments

CEOs are not seers

[eln]

The problem is, Gates made most (if not all) of these comments in order to push efforts that Microsoft was working on at the time. As a CEO of a major software company, part of his job was to make comments in public that would try to influence the industry to move in the direction that would align with what his own company was doing (or at least attempting) already.

These sorts of comments can often be successful at moving the industry because people automatically equate wealth and power with wisdom. In this way, they take what is basically a marketing statement and turn it into some sort of prophecy. Gates was right on some of these because his own company took the industry in that direction. Where he was wrong, it was because his own company failed in its efforts in that area, or (in the case of OS/2 especially) they decided to go in a different direction.

Re:CEOs are not seers

[jimstapleton]

You've never talked to what could be considered an "average" manager, have you?

Many people would see such arguments as silly, and blatant advertising, but for some reason, management often sees people who are able to make a lot of money as founts of wisdom in all matters.

Re:CEOs are not seers

[Opportunist]

Hey, they HAVE to be right, after all, they make a shitload of money!

Don't you dare questioning the way of the money! Money makes right! Ask any congressman next time he discusses matters with mafiaa representatives.

Re:CEOs are not seers

[Chris Burke]

One common theme in literature is the question of whether oracles predict the future, or create it. Would Oedipus have killed his father had the Oracle at Delphi never prophecied that he would and thus his father never sent him to die in the wilderness? Had the witches not said that Macbeth would not be harmed by any of woman born, would he have gone down the path that led to him being killed by the C-section-birthed Macduff?

Which relates to what you said in that Gates is trying to be the non-supernatural form of seer -- the one who tries to create the future with their prediction, instead of predicting some future that is destined to happen. Now, one of the common traits of literary oracles is that they are extremely wise and clever, such that truly distinguishing whether they can actually see the future or merely guide it meticulously is extremely difficult. They also tend to have unclear motivations, which also clouds the issue. This is what makes it interesting.

Gates' motivations are patently clear: Guide the direction of the industry in a way favorable to Microsoft. He also isn't supremely wise or clever. Though in the comparison I'm making he doesn't fit precisely because he's also the executor of whatever real path his company takes into the future. Somewhat like if it was Macbeth who predicted that he was to be king, hoping that saying so will help cause it to become true. Strangely that doesn't work as well.

Re:CEOs are not seers

[Kjella]

As a CEO of a major software company, part of his job was to make comments in public that would try to influence the industry to move in the direction that would align with what his own company was doing (or at least attempting) already.

Not to mention the infamous "deny-everything-until-we're-ready-to-launch" tactic. This comes both in the "dazzle the market" and "scramble to catch up" variety. Maybe there was some visionary insight in the boardroom or strategy sessions, but you didn't hear about it until they were ready to make money off it. CEO public statements are always about pushing you somewhere they need you to go or holding you back where they don't want you to go, also known as FUD.

Consider it a lot like the people playing the stock market. Some people want to talk the market up, some want to talk it down, some want to talking you into trading (brokers), others would rather scare you away (real estate) all depending on their position. None of them are into charity and free stock advice. Neither is the CEO of a public company out to give you free business predictions.

Re:CEOs are not seers

[Gonarat]

OS/2 was originally designed to be the successor to DOS back when Microsoft and IBM were working together. Microsoft and IBM then had a falling out and both companies went their own ways. IBM owned OS/2, so Microsoft pushed out Windows 3.0, which was not a DOS replacement, but a windowing system that ran on top of DOS 6.

Microsoft had to go back and develop Windows NT to replace DOS, and DOS did not actually go away until Windows XP ended the Windows 9x/ME line which were technically running on top of DOS.

IBM continued to develop OS/2 (remember OS/2 Warp), but while IBM may have owned the mainframe world, Microsoft owned the PC desktop. Windows won, and OS/2 was eventually retired.

Re:CEOs are not seers

[TravisO]

And I'd like to add I don't consider his prediction about OS/2 to be as incorrect as the article points it to be. I'd say in a way he was 100% correct, as long as you're willing to accept the fact that Microsoft eventually decided to "take it's ball and go home" and use it's knowledge of OS/2's creation and rewrite Windows. The future market was there, Microsoft just shifted it's efforts from IBM's OS/2 to their own OS/2ish OS, you may now call it NT. Ok I know NT isn't OS/2, but you can't deny how the events took place and that in a way, his prediction held some of it's weight.

OS/2

[C_Kode]

"I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time."

Two points here. First, he was selling the product when he said this, and secondly he was actually right in the idea of it. It just happen to be Windows and not OS/2. Microsoft attacked the general market. IBM only knew about dealing with businesses. Once Microsoft moved away from OS/2 and went full bore on Windows, OS/2's days were numbered even though OS/2 had a lot of things going for it over Windows.

Re:OS/2

[SpinyNorman]

In fact he really was correct since Windows NT was originally known (during development) as NT OS/2 or simply OS/2 3.0, even though it was a different code base. It'd really be quibbling not to give Gates this one. Windows NT really has as much, or more, conceptually in common with OS/2 as it does with Windows 1.x - 3.x.

Extra Extra.. read all about it!

[JustASlashDotGuy]

Business man makes business predictions about the future. Some are right... some are wrong!

And in related news.... critics choose to focus only on the predictions that were wrong!

* Personally, I really loved OS/2. It's wasn't the best piece of software *ever*, but it was truely remarkable for it's time. I wish MS would have stol^h^h^h borrowed more ideas from it.

OS2 prediction - OS2 became Windows

[jan de bont]

Given that OS2 and Windows NT were the same product before the IBM/Microsoft "divorce", given that after the divorce, Microsoft shipped NT 3.5.1 with a Bootloader that still said "OS2" (hexdump the boot sector on an NT 3.5.1 drive, if you still have a copy - You'll see it). Given that OS2 evolved directly into Win NT and therefore has a heritage that reaches all the way into Longhorn... He was right!

The fact that a reporter missed this bit of history is typical. No sense of history or heritage.

Don't confuse the brand, owned by IBM, with the code, originated with Microsoft, that became Windows server.

Here's a better saying

[goombah99]

"Pioneers get the Arrows, settlers get the land". Gates has always been a settler. They take proven technologies and ideas, copy cat them, and then try to inflate them to one way standards (embrace and extend). Settlers are useful. Microsoft created the low end PC vendor market by taming all sorts of diverse bios, video cards, disks and peripherals.

Gates would not look like such a stogy inept prognosticator if it were not for a few brighter lights and pioneers like Jobs and the Google boys. Even Michael Dell gets some credit for being a sort of henry ford at one time but that was sort of a one time flash.

Sure you can say Jobs did not invent Postscript or the WIMP interface or word processing in full-time graphic or music players or any number of things. But he was such an early and wholehearted adopter of nascent technologies that he is a pioneer. Pioneers did not invent the conastoga wagon or canoes they set forth in but they used them to blaze trails and set up the future.

Re:Here's a better saying

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Sure you can say Jobs did not invent Postscript or the WIMP interface or word processing in full-time graphic or music players or any number of things. But he was such an early and wholehearted adopter of nascent technologies that he is a pioneer. Pioneers did not invent the conastoga wagon or canoes they set forth in but they used them to blaze trails and set up the future.

You know, I really like that analogy, and I'll extend it one step further: the people who actually invented those things were explorers, and some explorers come back rich and covered in glory, but most die miserable deaths a long way from home. The pioneers are a bridge between exploration and real settlement.

A goal, not a prediction.

[Russ Nelson]

Microsoft's tagline was "a PC on every desktop and in every home."

That's a goal, not a prediction. A prediction requires that you have no ability to affect the outcome.

He missed the internet

[QuietLagoon]

The quotes from the "Internet Tidal Wave" memo should be counted as misses. Gates, and Microsoft, were caught unaware of the impending power of the Internet. Only belately (as the article states) did Gates realize this and write the memo.

If Gates were really a great seer, he would have written the Internet Tidal Wave memo in 1990, not after the wave rolled onto the beach in 1996.

I am wondering why all this effort over the past year to pump up Gates' reputation? Has his illegal activities so ruined his reputation that there is an active effort in place to clean Gates' reputation for the history books?

Re:On CEOs as seers.

[orclevegam]

You want a seer? Try Jules Verne. Now that guy was pretty damn amazing. Also Robert A. Heinlein. I still can't believe how accurate some of his stuff was considering a lot of it was written around the 1950s and 60s.

Re:What's the problem here?

[jank1887]

Ummm... but that was His point. The problem isn't solved. It's hidden. "I don't care where the garbage goes as long as it's not in my back yard..."

You still pay for it one way or the other. If it still costs you, it hasn't been solved.