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| Home Front: Tech |
| They never said it |
| 2005-08-26 |
| EFL There are about a half-dozen similar quotes that tech people use all the time. These quotes pop up in speeches, on posters, in PowerPoints, during sales talks and in pitches to raise money. They've practically become articles of faith in the industry. But how many of them are real? As it turns out, only one. Otherwise, they seem to come from the same sources who report Elvis sightings to the Weekly World News staff. Here are those tech quotes, in chronological order, and a look at their credibility: • "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." — William Orton, president of Western Union, in 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell tried to sell the company his invention. Well, Orton probably did say something like that, but probably not as a dismissal of the whole concept. First of all, it's reported in some sources that he said, "This electric toy has too many shortcomings ..." It was more of a way to disrespect Bell's version of the telephone and avoid licensing his patents — because within a year, Western Union had set up a separate company, American Speaking Telephone, to aggressively chase this new market. In fact, Western Union's handset, based on research by Thomas Edison, actually worked better than Bell's, according to The Worldwide History of Telecommunications by Anton Huurdeman. The problem was that voice calls couldn't travel very well on Western Union's telegraph lines. And then upstart Bell Co. sued the pants off Western Union for patent infringement. By 1879, Western Union was forced to sign an agreement that surrendered the phone business to Bell. Orton didn't underestimate the phone — he underestimated Bell. • "Everything that can be invented has been invented." — Charles Duell, U.S. Patent Commissioner, 1899. Total malarkey. This quote has been researched by various organizations as long ago as 1940, and no one has found evidence Duell said such a patently (nyuk-nyuk!) stupid thing. By contrast, he told Congress in 1899 — the same year he supposedly gave up on invention — that America's future success depended on invention. • "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" — Harry Warner, Warner Bros., as movies with sound made their debut in 1927. Context, people! Context! Here was Warner's full comment: "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? The music — that's the big plus about this." Warner Bros. was already investing in sound. Harry Warner believed that the sound that would sell movies was music, not prose. His mistake was artistic, not technological. Thomas Watson, builder of IBM, in 1943: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." IBM's archives staff has been asked repeatedly to find this quote. They can't. It's not in any of Watson's documented speeches, and this is a company that documented nearly everything Watson ever uttered. It's true that Watson at the time thought electronic computers would be sold only to research labs, but he was hoping to sell them to a lot of research labs — certainly more than five. But he, and just about everyone else at the time, failed to comprehend why any business would need to do thousands of calculations per second, particularly if it required an expensive, room-size, power-guzzling machine that would break down constantly — which was the state of computer art in 1943. Hmmmm. I've heard that it was a real quote, but he was talking about particular design, and there was a market for maybe five of that model. • "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." — Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, in 1977. At last! A fairly real quote! I asked Gordon Bell, the legendary computer designer who worked at Olsen's side in those years, who confirmed that Olsen said those words. "It may have been to focus the company away from PCs when people around him were saying that we've got to work on small computers," Bell says. Bell also sent me a remarkable Digital interoffice memo from 1969, in which Bell and other staffers laid out the potential for a small home computer — including applications like "shopping in the home," "play complex games" and "income tax figuring." So it's not that Olsen didn't know about PCs. He just didn't seem to like them. "No matter what, he could not envision one in HIS home," Bell says. • "640K ought to be enough for anybody." — Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, 1981. Over and over, Gates has denied saying this, and no evidence seems to exist that he did. Microsoft has always been in the business of pushing sales of new and better PCs: A new PC sold means new copies of Microsoft's software sold. So Gates implying that your current PC ought to be good enough would be like the Pope implying there were already enough Catholics. Again, I've heard that this was because he increased the RAM allocation boundary. IBM's original design was for only 512K for RAM and 512K for devices, and Gates suggested they go to 640/384K. UNIX once ran on 64K machines. Now? |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #5 You mean like this 1968 home computer? |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-08-26 21:46 |
| #4 If you think about what a PC circa 1970 would have looked like, could you, honestly see it being useful in the home? Sure! It would balance your check book and keep tabs on the mysteries of your flying car. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-08-26 18:11 |
| #3 As an ex-DECcie (14 yrs) I can add some to the KO quote. Olson's problem was with a lack of marketing vision as much as the development of the PC. Marketing was always DECs achillies heel. KOs idea of marketing was engineers selling to engineers. If you think about what a PC circa 1970 would have looked like, could you, honestly see it being useful in the home? ESPECIALLY with Olson's fanactical thirst for quality. He never understood that the three main factors in PC marketing were price, price and price. He wanted to build the same sort of indestructible, highly reliable machines as always, and charge accordingly. That "charge accordingly" was the main problem. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2005-08-26 15:17 |
| #2 "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" Well, I kinda feel that way when we're talking about Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon... |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-08-26 15:16 |
| #1 Yes, but there is the Gates comment about the internet... |
| Posted by: Whaling Phomoting2583 2005-08-26 14:41 |