Convergence is what I’m hearing from the information industries, but I’m a networking plumber, and when I look at the new technologies that will be employed in the future information infrastructure, I see divergence. As has happened in transportation over the centuries, there will be a proliferation of modes of information networking, and this is cool.
Predictor: Metcalfe, Robert
Prediction, in context:Bob Metcalfe, ethernet originator, comments on the differences in networking in a 1993 Business Wire story promoting Comnet ’94. Metcalfe says: ”Convergence is what I’m hearing from the information industries, but I’m a networking plumber, and when I look at the new technologies that will be employed in the future information infrastructure, I see divergence. As has happened in transportation over the centuries, there will be a proliferation of modes of information networking, and this is cool.”
Biography:Robert Metcalfe developed Ethernet technology at Xerox PARC in 1973 and later developed the networking company 3Comm. He is known for making the exaggerated 1995 prediction that due to an expected overload as people tried to connect, the Internet would “go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” He later jokingly ate his words, pureeing a paper copy of the article including this comment and swallowing it before a group of onlookers. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Business Wire
Title, headline, chapter name: Bob Metcalfe to Deliver Keynote Address at Comnet ’94
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action=doc&p_docid=0EE14F27B1B3BB73&p_docnum=1&NBID=Y52C52OOMTA0NjcyMDgxMS4yNjU3NzY6MTo2OjE1Mi4zMw
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty