Predicting the Future? Don’t Believe a Word of it!
As I started the process I noticed many interesting things lurking about. How about IBM redbooks from the DB2 V2 era (I'm talking mainframe here)? And there were some ancient manuals on VSAM and the IBM Repository and tons of proceedings books from industry conferences. Now if you attend industry conferences you know that they no longer hand out printed materials – so, yes, these “books” are from the early 90s (from IDUG, the DB2 Tech Conference, Gartner Symposium, and even Database and Client/Server World). I’m going to keep these relics as memories of days gone by, but I think I’ll box them up and put them away in the attic instead of keeping them nearby.
As I continued my excavation I came upon some old magazines, as well as research reports from industry analyst groups. These proved to be quite amusing. As I read through some of this material I became even more adamant that it never pays to believe prognosticators – even professional ones. Oh, reading this stuff when it is current can be helpful to guide you and keep you up-to-date, but it is very unwise to base your future plans on magazines and research reports. Why? I’ll tell you why, just keep reading.
You guessed it, I’m going to point out some “predictions” that went awry. I will not attribute them to any particular publication or analyst group, though. (Because I don’t want to get into any online shouting matches or arguments.) Suffice it to say, that all of the following come from respected sources. Here are some of my favorites:
From an analyst/pundit in 1996 commenting on the DBMS market – “Illustra now gives Informix a significant lead…Oracle’s greater market share and financial resources should compensate for its technical handicaps…No other vendor seems likely to mount a credible challenge to these two.” (Craig’s thoughts: “At least this guy didn’t forget about IBM, errr, wait-a-minute, I mean at least this guy didn’t put Sybase in his top two.”)
On Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) from an analyst group in 1995 – “(Our group) believes there are interoperability issues looming that may or may not be serious issues to users, depending on whether highly automatic message-delivery assurance, security, and traffic management are important at this early stage.” (Craig’s thoughts: “Hmmm. Now what should I do with this sage advice? I may or may not ignore it.”)
A survey from a financial analyst from 1997 on Y2K – “Only 6 percent had made no plans in this area (Y2K)” (Craig’s thoughts: “Here is an example where using this survey as input we might’ve been able to say, hey, looks like most everyone will fix this problem and we won’t need to build bunkers in Wyoming in case the world falls apart.”)
A 1997 magazine on the future of the PC – “Your PC will become an appliance, not making nearly the same demands on your time as today’s PCs.” (Craig’s thoughts: “Sure, I guess that motherboard in my main PC didn’t just blow up requiring me to buy a new machine, and then re-install everything. And my Mom isn’t calling me because her CD drive no longer works and she can’t find anything she downloads. Yes, it is all so easy now.
I’m going to stop here for the time-being. But as I keep on cleaning out my closet I may post additional blog entries on this topic. So keep in checking back in…
© 2006, Mullins Consulting, Inc.
