Tech predictions that didn’t come true

To predict future is not easy. But some predictions are made on weak grounds that really don’t have good ends. Here are some of the tech related predictions that became a total failure:

 

1.  1876: “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not.  We have plenty of messenger boys.” — William Preece, British Post Office.

 

2. 1876: “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” — William Orton, President of Western Union.

 

3. 1889: “Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time.  Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison

 

4.  1903: “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” — President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Company.

 

5.  1946: “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months.  People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox.

 

6. 1955: “Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.” — Alex Lewyt, President of the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company.

 

7. 1959: “Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles.  We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.” — Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General.

 

8. 1961: “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the United States.” — T.A.M. Craven, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner.

 

9. 1966: “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop.” — Time Magazine.

 

10. 1981: “Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems.” — Marty Cooper, inventor.

 

11. 1995: “I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” — Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com.

 

12. 2006: “Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone.  My answer is, ‘Probably never.’” — David Pogue, The New York Times.

 

13. 2007: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” — Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.

Source:Forbes