1.
NEVER SAW IT COMING:
The Worst Technology Predictions
of All Time
www.shoretel.com

2.
1876
“This ‘telephone’ has too many
shortcomings to be seriously considered
as a means of communications. The
device is inherently of no value to us.”
WESTERN UNION INTERNAL MEMO1

3.
“Everything that can be invented
has been invented.”
CHARLES H. DUELL, commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents1
1899

4.
“The horse is here to
stay but the automobile
is only a novelty – a fad.”
President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising
Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest
in the Ford Motor Company2
1903

5.
WHO THE HELL WANTS TO SEE ACTORS TALK?
HARRY M. WARNER, Warner Bros.1
1927

6.
“I think there is a
world market for maybe
five computers.”
THOMAS WATSON, president of IBM1
1943

7.
“Television won’t be able to
hold on to any market it captures
after the first six months. People
will soon get tired of staring at
a plywood box every night.”
DARYL ZANUCK, 20th
Century Fox co-founder3
1946

8.
“There is practically no chance
communications space satellites will
be used to provide better telephone,
telegraph, television or radio service
inside the United States.”
T. CRAVEN, FCC commissioner2
1961

9.
“There is no reason for any
individual to have a computer
in their home.”
KEN OLSEN, president, chairman & founder
of Digital Equipment Corporation11977

10.
1
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2
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4
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5
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7
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8
WXY
9
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OPERATOR
0
MNO
6
“Cellular phones will absolutely
not replace local wire systems.”
MARTY COOPER, Motorola engineer and inventor
of the first cell phone in 19732
1981

11.
“I predict the Internet
will soon go spectacularly
supernova and in 1996,
catastrophically collapse.”
ROBERT METCALFE, founder of 3Com2
1995

12.
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is
going to get any significant market share.”
STEVE BALLMER, Microsoft CEO2
2007

13.
HINDSIGHT IS 20/20.
Don’t look back and wish you had upgraded your business
communications a lot sooner than you did. Experience greater
savings, flexibility and ease of use today.
www.shoretel.com
1
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/through2.html
2
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertszczerba/2015/01/05/15-worst-tech-predictions-of-all-time/
3
http://www.techhive.com/article/155984/worst_tech_predictions.html
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