The idea of the monolithic online service is over, and the Internet industry is being split up.
Predictor: Evslin, Tom
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for InfoWorld, Michael Parsons interviews Tom Evslin, AT&T’s vice president of gateway services. According to Evslin, formerly of Microsoft, telephony and data communications will merge and multimedia phone calls will be the standard. Parsons quotes Evslin saying: ”Our emphasis is on an open Internet strategy. The idea of the monolithic online service is over, and the Internet industry is being split up. A huge part of our play is an access services. That’s entirely separate from the two other businesses, hosting and content. AT&T is playing in all three areas. We think it’s a simple model. There’s some advantage in not having tied ourselves to any content provider. However, I don’t think this has interfered with the broad market we’re seeking: Those consumers haven’t even started to think about that market. The growth of the Internet has been extraordinary. I was at Microsoft Corp. until last year, and there we were also surprised. I was an early advocate of Internet services, yet I underestimated it – and I was considered an extremist. It surprised us all.”
Date of prediction: October 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Internet Service Providers
Name of publication: InfoWorld
Title, headline, chapter name: Getting on the Internet at Last
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?Did=000000008661108&Fmt=3&Deli=1&Mtd=1&Idx=1&Sid=2&RQT=309
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney