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AnchorDesk

David Coursey
I'm not always right! Check out my worst tech predictions

David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Friday, March 30, 2001
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Every so often, I completely miss the mark. Not as often as some e-mails and TalkBacks suggest, but occasionally my attempts to foretell the future are just plain wrong. And today I'd like to do penance for some of those missed predictions--and talk about a few that have yet to be proven either right or wrong.

Unix pioneer Doug Michels could tell you about my initial skepticism toward the Web (yes, the same medium that has now employed me for a few years). Doug was excited, and I just didn't get why.

In related predictions: I wasn't wrong when I anticipated--against considerable pressure from Sun--that Java wouldn't be the world-changer they claimed it was preordained to become. Nor did I err when I forecast that the "free" Internet would not last for long.

I WAS WRONG when, just after the release of the first versions of RealAudio, I expressed skepticism that audio quality over low bandwidth connections would ever improve enough to make Internet radio a real medium. I mention this because the person I expressed this viewpoint to was Rob Glaser, founder of RealNetworks. Rob was right, and I missed anticipating technology's ability to turn his dream into reality.

I might also have erred when I voiced skepticism to Mitchell Kapor, the Lotus founder, when he told me a few years ago that there would soon be 10,000 Internet radio stations. What I think I said was, we would reach that number, but none would be profitable. In which case, I was right. Today there are many online radio stations, but it's hard to find a real commercial success among them.

Apple has proven me wrong on numerous occasions--like whenever I think the company may finally be getting its act together and might actually do something to regain market share. I was not mistaken, however, when I predicted the iMac rush would be a flash in the pan, or when I said the cube design was more cute than commercial. Or when I figured that Steve Jobs would quickly push former CEO Gil Amelio aside.

I THOUGHT I WOULD BE PROVEN WRONG earlier this year, when I predicted--on television--that Microsoft wouldn't be broken up. While there are still court battles ahead, I am feeling a lot better about that forecast.

Another pending prognostication is that all-in-one cellular telephone/PDA devices won't catch on. The Europeans are really pushing the single-device concept, but I've yet to see one device that does the work as well as two. Maybe someday I will not have to carry both, but I suspect it will require major changes in user interface or form factor to convince me.

My prediction that wireless would be big was many years premature, especially when I was talking about wireless mobile e-mail. Wireless has begun to catch on, but progress is still relatively slow. I was at the first introductions of wireless local area networks, and fell in love with the idea. This was five or six years ago, and only in the last year have prices really come down.

SOMETIMES I AM WRONG TO A FAULT. Like those years when I said the dot-com boom would soon turn to bust. I knew it would happen, and so I missed the opportunities and riches. About the time I decided that maybe I was wrong and joined a dot-com start-up, the bottom fell out. Need some options from my now-dead former employer?

The fun of this job is that I get to work with some very smart people, and most of the time I'm able to foresee the success or failure of products, or where the industry is heading. But other times...well, now you know about some of them.

Where else have I been wrong...or right? TalkBack to me.

Note to readers: David is now getting up bright and early to visit with Brian Cooley every morning at 7:45 a.m. PT on CNET Radio (910AM in the San Francisco Bay Area and at www.cnetradio.com online). You can also catch David on CNET's News.com TV program, which airs twice every weekend on CNBC (see airtimes) or by going to the special CNET TV page featuring his most recent appearances.

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