We all know that the iPhone has been one of the most amazing inventions of recent times. The market share that it has been able to capture is pretty impressive, and each new incarnation leads to queues around the block as people wait patiently to get their hands on the latest version.
With its success, you would perhaps find it hard to believe that not everyone in the technology industry was convinced. Enter right of stage, Steve Ballmer who, in 2007, was the CEO of Microsoft. Now, you would imagine that the CEO of a technology giant such as Microsoft would be pretty up-to-date on trends and the way in which the market is going, but it seems that this was not the case.
Upon the release of the iPhone, Ballmer was directly quoted as saying that “the iPhone would never be able to capture a share of the market.” In other words, he was convinced that it was doomed to be an absolute failure.
So, Steve, how well did that prediction go?