Scholarly Communi- cation Futures

摘要

The comment, There is no business in the world which can hope to move forward if it does not keep abreast of the time, look into the future and study the probable demands of the future (Berghel, 2002) came from Thomas Watson in 1932 at the opening of a new IBM laboratory, but then this is the same Watson whom Berghel quotes as saying in 1943, 'I think there is a world market for maybe five computers'! Similarly Ken Alson, founder of Digital said, 'there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home in 1977'. To conclude this rather depressing set of futurology statements, Bin Gates said in 1981, '640k ought to be enough for anybody'. Gates, one also recalls, took a long time to realize the impact of the Net in terms of Microsoft (Berghel, 2002).