Over the next few years the Internet will improve and provide easy access, wide availability, a consistent user interface, easy navigation, and integration with other commercial on-line services … Full audio and video support will require significant changes in the network and probably won’t be available for several years. When these changes do happen, they will set up the Internet in direct competition with the phone companies’ voice networks. Their different pricing approaches will make the competition interesting to watch.
Predictor: Gates, Bill
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “The Road Ahead,” Microsoft CEO Bill Gates writes: ”Over the next few years the Internet will improve and provide easy access, wide availability, a consistent user interface, easy navigation, and integration with other commercial on-line services … Full audio and video support will require significant changes in the network and probably won’t be available for several years. When these changes do happen, they will set up the Internet in direct competition with the phone companies’ voice networks. Their different pricing approaches will make the competition interesting to watch.”
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: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Road Ahead (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 5: Paths to the Highway
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 99, 100
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne