The VAR Guy's 7 Worst Predictions of All Time

The VAR Guy has a pretty good track record covering the IT industry. But sometimes his IT forecasts completely miss the mark. As we all gear up for 2007, here’s a humbling look back at The VAR Guy’s 7 Worst Predictions of All Time.

1994 Prediction: Novell’s AppWare, a fledgling application development environment, would lead the company into the future. Reality: Novell shut down the project that same year before selling off its remnants.

1995 Prediction: Dave Cutler, the father of Windows NT, was ready to retire. Reality: More than a decade later, Cutler remains a Microsoft Technical Fellow.

1995 Prediction: Social interfaces, where users interact with onscreen characters, would eventually replace the file/folder metaphor on PCs. Reality: We’re still waiting.

1997 Prediction: Apple would abandon Mac OS for Windows NT. Reality: Ironically, The VAR Guy in 2006 abandoned Windows for Mac OS X.

1999: Prediction: Struggling networking vendor Cabletron would soon rebound. Reality: The company ultimately broke itself up and suffered from an accounting scandal. A portion of Cabletron lives on as Enterasys Networks.

2000 Prediction: The VAR Guy says only two Linux distributions–Red Hat and Caldera–really matter. Reality: Caldera ultimately imploded. Red Hat has thrived. Novell has pumped up SuSE Linux. And new distributions like Ubuntu and Xandros are gaining momentum.

2001 Prediction: Numerous midsize networking companies would eat away at Cisco’s market share. Reality: Cisco remains the No. 1 or No. 2 player in most major segments of the networking sector.

With that list in mind, The VAR Guy will avoid the temptation to make big IT predictions for 2007.