UPDATED 15:30 EDT / DECEMBER 31 2013

NEWS

Eric Schmidt makes obvious predictions for 2014

In late 2011, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt predicted that by the Summer of 2012, the majority of TVs sold in stores will have Google TV embedded on them.  Well, if you’ve been keeping track of Google TV, you’ll have noticed that Schmidt’s prediction was somewhat wide of the mark – in fact, it didn’t even come close to what they expected  Google’s TV partners lost a lot of money betting on the TV platform and quickly abandoned it when they realized how bad it was.  That bold statement dampened Schmidt’s credibility, so it’s not surprising that the chairman chose his words carefully in his predictions for this year.

In a segment on Bloomberg TV, Schmidt provided his predictions for 2014 which aren’t that too surprising.

“Everyone is going to have a smartphone,” predicts Schmidt. “The trend has been mobile was winning; it’s now won.”

With mobile manufacturers pushing smartphones down consumers’ throats, it won’t be long until every single person on this planet owns a smartphone.  No matter if it’s a low-end smartphone or a top of the line device like the iPhone 5s, Galaxy S4, HTC One or LG Pro, anyone who’s anyone will own such a device by this time next year.

Aside from this, Google’s chairma also predicted that smartphone and tablet sales will surpass those of computer sales – again, this not a surprising prediction given the fact that analytics firms have been saying the same thing for the last year or so.  Even Windows 8 failed to help sales of new desktops or laptops, as consumers are far more interested in buying tablets and smartphones that do more or less the same thing as any high-end laptop can do these days.

But Schmidt is certain about one thing – Google will not be left out anymore in the social revolution.

“The biggest mistake that I made was not anticipating the rise of the social networking phenomenon,” admits Schmidt.

“Not a mistake we’re going to make again. I guess in our defense we were busy working on many other things, but we should have been in that area and I take responsibility for that.”

Though Schmidt’s predictions for 2014 are pretty obvious, there is one thing the chairman and the company isn’t so certain about, and that’s the disruption Google plans to make in the genetics area.  With all the focus on the Quantified Self and people becoming more interested in keeping themselves healthy, Schmidt stated that having personal genetics records “will yield discoveries in cancer treatment and diagnostics over the next year.”


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