subject: Did Ibm And Bill Gates Make A Mistake? [print this page] The Internet process is growing very fastThe Internet process is growing very fast. The development of software and hardware in this century is very fast compared to the last century.
Thomas Watson, chairman of the IBM said in 1943 that he thought that only 5 computers could be sold on the world market. Well, already in 2007 one Billion computers were sold. The question is why was he so wrong? Innovation is the keyword and development is innovative process.
What is innovation about? It is about what is viable in the current market, desirable for the users as well as what the technology can offer. The 3 factors do have to play along if you will be innovative. A train could be an example of innovation. If you are in the front of the train you will get to the goal first but you also have major cost as you have no one to share it with. However, you are the winner. If you get on the train in time you will share your winnings with the other passengers (competitors). If you do not go for the train you will loose everything.
Searching on Google you will find out that "innovation" is one of the top searching words. The reason why is that we are trying getting advantages towards our competitors. Business men today are getting innovation training. Maybe you have to change the organization too. The organization or the business men might be good at product management. However, they might have difficulties by innovation as the discipline of innovation takes some training unless you are a talent.
Bill Gates certainly has talent but he has made a statement saying that 640K is enough memory for the computers. The need of kilobytes has changed a lot since 1981 where he made that statement.
Some business statements are interesting. For example did some mechanics forecast the computer weight to be no more than 1.5 tons per computer in the future. They were definitely right. Today your mobile computer device can be in your bag or pocket.
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., did say in 1977 that: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home". That is of course incorrect as we use our computers at home, at work, on travel etc.
Products have their time but ideas are current. The question is. Will all estimates be truth from now on? Not at all but estimates are often right in terms of the use of products but no experts are able to tell us when we able to use the products.
