Jimmy Guterman, Editorial Director, O'Reilly Radar

The Dangers of Predicting the Future

February 21, 2008 at 12:01 am PT

The instant-analysis business is a tricky one. None of us have working crystal balls; any attempt to predict the future, even the five-minutes-from-now future, is risky. For example, on Jan. 31, mere hours before Microsoft made its unsolicited $44 billion-plus offer for Yahoo, Forrester Research, my alma matter, posted a research note with the following headline and deck:
Microsoft Will Make Small Acquisitions
Its Size, Visibility To Antitrust Bodies And Strategy Rule Out Big Deals

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Tagged with: Forrester Research, Jimmy Guterman, Microsoft, O’Reilly Radar, Yahoo

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