All of a sudden software like ours starts to make a lot of sense … That compels us to produce better tools to make it easier for them to do that, which is what we’re doing.
Predictor: Andreessen, Marc
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for InfoWorld magazine, writer Nick Wingfield asks Marc Andreessen the question, “What are the compelling applications of the Internet for IS managers?” His answer: ”…For the first time in a long time, there’s a commonly accepted networking infrastructure. Everybody is running TCP/IP. You’ve got the emergence of this new class of software which has a lot of benefits compared to old, largely proprietary systems from traditional software vendors. You’ve got the properties of being able to run truly cross-platform applications from software vendors that don’t have a vested interest in any particular operating system or box. You’ve got the ability to do network-centric applications rather than desktop-centric applications. You’ve got the ability to take all this data in all these disparate database systems that you’ve got scattered all over your company and start to pull them together. All these really fundamental shifts, the fact that [IS managers] made this huge investment in all this internal infrastructure, means that all of a sudden software like ours starts to make a lot of sense. It’s such an apparent thing for them … that in many cases we find they actually build it themselves. They build gateways to their own databases; they build their own discussion-group links, they build their own linkages to their existing Oracle databases. So that compels us to produce better tools to make it easier for them to do that, which is what we’re doing.”
Biography:Marc Andreessen worked with Eric Bina at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in 1992, to develop a browser that would be usable on any computer, easy to use and graphically rich. In 1993, their browser, Mosaic, completely changed the face of the Internet Ð it allowed HTML “image” tags which make it so text and art can appear on the same page; it allowed easy text scrolling; and it introduced hyperlinks, allowing users to simply click on an area of the screen to go to another document on the Internet. In1994, Mosaic was developed and marketed; the product eventually was named Netscape. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: InfoWorld
Title, headline, chapter name: Interview: Marc Andreessen Tackles Internet Issues
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-03-1996/idgns.java.1995/idgns.java.1995.065.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Allen, Patrick J.