PDA

View Full Version : Famous Missed Opportunities



mistanice
04-18-2007, 09:59 PM
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." Popular Mechanics, 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, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Ken Olson, President, Chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

"640k ought to be enough for anybody." Bill Gates, 1981.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." CHarles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

"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.

"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."

"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 projct to drill for oil in 1859.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"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." 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

Fal44
04-18-2007, 10:01 PM
pretty funny...

Emerson1
04-18-2007, 10:01 PM
I have 87 of them ;)

http://bbs.3adownlow.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63382&highlight=predictions

mistanice
04-18-2007, 10:06 PM
Originally posted by Emerson1
I have 87 of them ;)

http://bbs.3adownlow.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63382&highlight=predictions

lol, that was only yesterday, weird!

Emerson1
04-18-2007, 10:11 PM
It's like when you think about a movie you haven't seen in a long time, and the next day it's on TV...... Happened to me with National Treasure, I put it on my queue for blockbuster online because I happen to see it on the website. The day it shipped USA started showing it.