The Executive Computer; 'Mother of All Markets' or a 'Pipe Dream Driven by Greed'? (1992)

New York times ^ | 7/19/1992 | NYT

[Dallas59]

Sometime around the middle of this decade no one is sure exactly when -- executives on the go will begin carrying pocket-sized digital communicating devices. And although nobody is exactly sure what features these personal information gizmos will have, what they will cost, what they will look like or what they will be called, hundreds of computer industry officials and investors at the Mobile '92 conference here last week agreed that the devices could become the foundation of the next great fortunes to be made in the personal computer business.

"We are writing Chapter 2 of the history of personal computers," said Nobuo Mii, vice president and general manager of the International Business Machines Corporation's entry systems division.

[Dallas59]

"Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, the huge chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is "a pipe dream driven by greed."

Lol....

[Dr. Sivana]

Sometime around the middle of this decade

and the prophecy was fulfilled by none other than Apple Computer...

with ... The Newton!

It did say middle of the '90s, right?

[Dr. Sivana]

He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is "a pipe dream driven by greed."

Well, they are expensive for the companies to make. Almst everyone of them costs, if not an arm and a leg, at least an ARM, and Intel doesn't like that.

[bigbob]

Never had a Newton but I did have a Radio Shack PDA from that era, it got stolen after I left it in a restroom. Then a couple of Casios, which only proved that Palm OS beat the snot out of Windows CE, so I finally saw the light and got a Sony Clie, which is still a class act, but Palm OS was already becoming the DOS of the handheld world by then.

And then the two-way pager, and the phones, dumb and smart, Windows Mobile, iEverything, and Android.

What a long strange trip it’s been, and it was all science fiction 20 years ago. Driven by American ingenuity and capitalism, not “greed”.

[Vendome]