The Microsoft CEO’s prediction begs the question about education’s multibillion dollar textbook industry: Steve Ballmer predicts in today’s Washington Post: “ there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network.” Ballmer’s point is that making media “more interactive” is the effect of delivering via the Internet. The same would be true of delivering open educational resources that way. Our kids, like Ballmer’s son, interact playing Xbox in the evening and trudge to school with their studies isolated in textbooks in their backpacks. Can we predict that in 10 years the textbook delivery will no longer be in paper form? If not, why not?
From the Ballmer Washington Post interview:
Question: What is your outlook for the future of media?
Steve Ballmer: In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion.
Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form. 10 years?
Yeah. If it’s 14 or if it’s 8, it’s immaterial to my fundamental point. . . . If we want TV to be more interactive, you’ll deliver it over an IP network. I mean, it’s sort of funny today. My son will stay up all night basically playing Xbox Live with friends that are in various parts of the world, and yet I can’t sit there in front of the TV and have the same kind of a social interaction around my favorite basketball game or golf match. It’s just because one of these things is delivered over an IP network and the other is not. . . .
