Microsoft gave its reply on Dec. 7 [1995], announcing that it was throwing all its considerable weight toward the Internet “tidal wave.” It endorsed Java, Sun Microsystems’ competing computer language for generating lively interactive Web pages, and announced that it would gear its applications to work with the Internet. “The Internet is pervasive in everything we’re doing,” said Bill Gates.
Predictor: Gates, Bill
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Newsweek, writers Steven Levy, Katie Hafner and Roger Adams quote Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. They write: ”[In 1994 the Internet] lurked under most of our personal radar screens. When we heard of the Information Highway, we thought of 500 channels of cable television, half of which would be home-shopping networks or pay-per-view movie channels showing Hugh Grant comedies in staggered time slots … By November [1995], at the huge Comdex computer trade show, all anyone wanted to talk about was the Internet. Earlier in the year the industry talk was centered on Microsoft’s power – was its domination of the computer industry so thorough that the government should break it up? Now people were wondering whether Bill Gates’s company was a trapped mastodon, unable to compete in the open-standards world of the Internet. Microsoft gave its reply on Dec. 7, announcing that it was throwing all its considerable weight toward the Internet ‘tidal wave.’ It endorsed Java, Sun Microsystems’ competing computer language for generating lively interactive Web pages, and announced that it would gear its applications to work with the Internet. ‘The Internet is pervasive in everything we’re doing,’ said Bill Gates.”
Biography:Bill Gates, the most influential technology entrepreneur of the late 20th century, was the primary author of the prediction-packed 1995 book “The Road Ahead” and is the founder and CEO of Microsoft Corporation. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: December 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software
Name of publication: Newsweek
Title, headline, chapter name: The Year of the Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 26
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney