Sun chief Scott McNealy is a fierce competitor, and his blood lust for Bill Gates has fueled the Java project from the beginning … McNealy even sees the day when disposable word processors and spreadsheets will be delivered over the Web via Java, priced per use. “This blows up Gates’s lock and destroys his model of a shrink-wrapped software that runs only on his platform.”
Predictor: McNealy, Scott
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, David Bank scrutinizes the development of Java software at Sun Microsystems, telling “the inside story of bringing Java to the market.” Bank writes: ”Java is unlikely ever to become a major profit center at Sun, though any increase in Web traffic is bound to increase sales of Sun’s workstations and servers. But in this case, emotion may be at least as important as profit. Sun chief Scott McNealy is a fierce competitor, and his blood lust for Bill Gates has fueled the Java project from the beginning. McNealy is especially excited about Java’s ability to run on any computer, using Windows, Mac OS, Unix, or any other operating system – posing a threat to Microsoft hegemony. Spinning into the future, McNealy even sees the day when disposable word processors and spreadsheets will be delivered over the Web via Java, priced per use. ‘This blows up Gates’s lock and destroys his model of a shrink-wrapped software that runs only on his platform,’ effuses McNealy.”
Biography:Scott McNealy was the CEO and cofounder of Sun Microsystems, Inc., a leading global supplier of network computing solutions, including Java, in the 1990s. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: The Java Saga: Sun’s Java is the Hottest Thing on the Web Since Netscape. Maybe Hotter. But for All the Buzz, Java Nearly Became a Business-School Case Study in How a Good Product Fails
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.12/java.saga_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney