For technology to become “pervasive” it has to be “more noticeable by its absence than its presence,” … like electricity or running water. When it does, the number of suppliers will shrink, and it will be harder for companies to differentiate themselves.
Predictor: Birnbaum, Joel
Prediction, in context:A Business Wire report on the European IT Forum 1995, sponsored by market-research company International Data Corp., includes a segment on a presentation by Joel Birnbaum, vice president and director of Hewlett-Packard Labs: ”For technology to become ‘pervasive’ it has to be ‘more noticeable by its absence than its presence,’ [Birnbaum] asserted, like electricity or running water. When it does, the number of suppliers will shrink, and it will be harder for companies to differentiate themselves … [HP will have an edge, he said] as electronic sensors become smaller and smarter, and a ‘digitally connected world’ emerges in which devices such as intelligent televisions will be able to detect whether they are receiving movies, a newspaper or a spreadsheet.”
Date of prediction: September 5, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Business Wire
Title, headline, chapter name: Ellison, Gates Jockey for Position on Info Highway at IDC’s European IT Forum
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=10b583b35d8db4e927149c6d774af9fe&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVlb-lSlzV&_md5=5b3885951838996becae48e23ee86726
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney