Rob Enderle To Replace Herniated Disc With Blu-ray Disc

[jkwest]

clicky

I’ve long wondered why analysts who have such a poor record of predicting tech product winners and losers and revenue estimates continue to be quoted by the media as credible sources even when their information is as likely to be proven true as the headline on this blog.

Rob Enderle has not only missed forecasts more often than one would think could be missed even by someone with no knowledge of technology, there are questions he raises himself about his sometimes clear bias and stubborn support of specific companies from which he receives financial compensation.
(Full disclosure: We have said here from the beginning and clearly stated on this site that I am paid by a consortium of software and hardware companies backing this Blu-ray support site to conduct interviews, produce videos, and write blogs of my choosing without any censorship. I'm also a reporter, not an analyst.)

Even before Rob Enderle, in the early to mid-1990s the former Paul Kagan & Associates dished out (and sold and profited by) reports forecasting the imminent meteoric rise in pay-per-view revenues to billions and billions of dollars for cable companies. It never happened – 15 years later the entire PPV and video-on-demand industry finally hit the ONE billion dollar mark, years after the home video industry had soared past $20 billion.

Inexplicably to me, industry professionals continued to trust these people, they kept showing up to their conferences and they kept paying for their reports. So, we in the media continued to quote them.

Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Kagan and other market analysts from California to Wall Street consistently predicted the imminent demise of the home video market and particularly rental retailers like Blockbuster at the hands of PPV and emerging electronic delivery technologies. That didn’t and still hasn’t happened.

These days Ron Enderle of the eponymously named Enderle Group has taken inaccurate analysis and perspective to a new level. But that's his privilege to do so for whatever reasons he may.

The question is: Where are the market forecast credentials that entice even high-profile publications to quote Ron Enderle as a credible resource on new technology?

A quick glance of his record shows that he:

• declared “HD-DVD Wins” in a December 2006 Technology Pundits column, a declaration that was never true at any point during the battle with Blu-ray.

• Stated emphatically in a Digital Trends column that same month that it “appears impossible” for Blu-ray to gain a substantial lead on HD DVD. Blu-ray did exactly that and a little more than a year later HD DVD threw in the towel.

• Told Reuters in February 2007 that Wal-Mart’s entry into digital movie downloads was “a game changer” that spelled “the beginning of the end for DVDs.” Less than a year later Wal-Mart shut down its movie downloading service.

• Wrote in a column for Digital Trends in April 2007 that “any studio wanting Wal-Mart’s support after year end had better be selling HD DVD movies. “Wal-Mart won’t be promoting Blu-Ray…” Shortly after year’s end Wal-Mart dropped HD DVD in favor of promoting Blu-ray exclusively.

• As late as August 27, 2007, in a TechNewsWorld column he said he had been predicting a Blu-ray victory all along and that “by this time HD-DVD would be toast” (huh?), but that now he was reversing course and proclaiming “Blu-ray: RIP” less than 6 months before HD DVD conceded victory to Blu-ray; that “Blu-ray may have effectively killed the PS3,” “Blu-ray simply can’t get there,” “Blu-ray can’t win,” and “it is reasonably obvious Blu-ray lost.”

• On January 10, 2008, just weeks before Toshiba officially dropped its HD DVD platform, Enderle defied all conventional wisdom by posting a column at ITBusinessEdge providing bullet point suggestions of how Toshiba’s HD DVD could still win the war against Blu-ray.

It’s tough predicting the future and a lot of people were wrong about HD DVD, but Enderle’s self-appointed job and his frequent quotes should require that he be accurate, at least most of the time. He doesn’t have to make such specific and declarative forecasts unless he's just trying to draw attention to himself and be quoted. His support of Toshiba's HD DVD has been fanboy-like, while most other analysts provided a more objective, balanced, and less absolute forecast.

One hopes Enderle’s bullheaded support of Toshiba doesn’t lie in the fact that, according to the bio on his own web site, he sits on the Advisory Council for Toshiba.

Despite missing almost every forecast in the Blu-ray / HD DVD battle, he still seems determined to denigrate the viability of Blu-ray in the face of much evidence to the contrary. Just this week in a Home Media Magazine story noting that Blu-ray revenues are already overtaking digital movie downloads after less than one full year in the market following the demise of HD DVD, Enderle is quoted dismissing the data and suggesting it is all little more than spin by the “blu-ray marketing organization.”

Again, it sounds more like the bitter loser rhetoric of a fanboy on a forum than legitimate analysis.

If Enderle’s off-target projections were limited to HD DVD and Blu-ray, he might even be given a bit of a pass, but his forecasts and favoritism have been off and called into question for years. In various articles you will find him predicting that HP’s iPod will outsell Apple’s iPod, commenting candidly in a 2006 InformationWeek column about being unavoidably biased towards vendors that are also his clients, and articles disclosing that Enderle was indeed biased or did not disclose in articles about Microsoft and Dell products in The New York Times and elsewhere as recently as last August that he was a paid consultant for those companies.

Hey, I've freely admitted in multiple columns that I was wrong in thinking that DVDs would never replace the videocassette but I never sold or even declared my gut feeling at the time and wasn't quoted predicting DVDs would fail. I've had enough misjudgments that I would hate for someone to list them all here as I am doing with Enderle. But I am not an analyst and I am not holding myself out as someone who makes forecasts of the future.
I don't know Rob Enderle and I am not suggesting that he isn't free to say whatever he chooses.

I'm suggesting that when picking experts and analysts to quote, perhaps we in the media are too lazy about finding the best sources. Perhaps we should hold analysts to the fire; go back once in awhile and report on their forecasts. Or at least check their veracity periodically rather than continuing to rely on the same names.
Maybe Rob Enderle is a good place to start.

Nice ending!!! Enderle needs to be put out to pasture...IMO..

[Ben]

Awesome job by Mr. Hettrick. Enderle is pathetic and the public, and more importantly, the editors that hire him for his opinion, need to know just exactly how bought and paid for he is.

[Blaumann]

bookmarked the blog for use with the next article that comes along and has Enderle's expert opinion in it....

[P@t_Mtl]

His lastest article was this

"The Earth is flat, don't buy all the that scientific fact"

This pretty amazing even the most stupid dog can learn, seem like this guy just don't want too learn.

[Rup_Muk]

Good points raised in that blog. Perhaps a report card scoring the outcome of predictions from analysts and/or experts 1-1.5 years following the prediction will help us differentiate betwen real experts and shills.

My $0.02.

Rup.

[RustyK94]

A lot ppl laughed me off when i said in 2000 that in 3 years DVD would over take VHS and it did.

I never went to crazy for DVD cause i knew some form of HD media would be a long soon after. 2006 Blu-Ray came along.

I was a little skeptical about Blu-Ray to start with as a lot of the early movies had poor transfers and players where slow and needed a lot of firmware upgrades and yes i did at one time buy an Xbox360 add on.

Although i bought it full confident that Blu-Ray would win out in the end. There where just some movies i relay wanted to see that where only on HD-DVD. But i only ever bought two movies for thing.

One of the things that put me off HD-DVD was how easily the discs scratch no matter how careful you are.

Eventually i sold it just in time and got about 60 quid for it about a month i think later you could only get 20 for it lol.

Blu-Ray will be here for a very long time. One cause consumers are not about to jump ship to another format any time soon nor does any company have the money to invest in another format.

Even if they did home media is near maxed out with 1080p. Movie viewing will just become more diverse. There will be downloads 10 years from now with decent market share.

But i see direct video services making a impact before.

[dobyblue]

Enderle - "Rain isn't really wet, here's why..."

Great job Scott Hettrick, Enderle deserves a thousand times more articles like this to be posted.

[owa]

Yep, good one and one to bookmark.

[Blu Titan]

Great article. No surprise about Enderle's track record since he is a paid $hill, and nothing more.

[SkantDragon]

I couldn't agree with this article more. This guy's predictions and comments on the industry have always been completely off the mark, and certainly do appear to consistently favor certain companies such as Microsoft and Toshiba.

It's hard to prove that he really is being paid by these companies to spread lies in an attempt to alter market perceptions and ultimately sales. It only (strongly) looks that way.

However, it's not that hard to look through his past predictions and check their accuracy in hind sight. And as far as I've seen, his predictions have virtually never come true. Indeed, the exact opposite coming true seems to be the norm. Really... if this guy is saying you're definately going to win, it means you're about to lose.

[Clark Kent]

Excellent article. Enderle's projections and predictions have been wrong so many times it is a wonder he still has a platform for them.

[CAB]

The media is lazy. Why? . . . the public tolerates it with 15 minute attention span, zero memory and no knowledge and understanding of history. We should demand better from the sources of the sources. In the mean time just shut the BS off and read a book.

[Anthony P]

The only good thing about Enderle Is the predictability of how wrong he is. The good thing about reading his predictions is that you know they are always 180 degrees wrong so if he says X is dead you know it will win soon and if he says something will be happening soon then it has no chance.

[doctorD]

Originally Posted by SkantDragon

I couldn't agree with this article more. This guy's predictions and comments on the industry have always been completely off the mark, and certainly do appear to consistently favor certain companies such as Microsoft and Toshiba.

It's hard to prove that he really is being paid by these companies to spread lies in an attempt to alter market perceptions and ultimately sales. It only (strongly) looks that way.
However, it's not that hard to look through his past predictions and check their accuracy in hind sight. And as far as I've seen, his predictions have virtually never come true. Indeed, the exact opposite coming true seems to be the norm. Really... if this guy is saying you're definately going to win, it means you're about to lose.

You don't have to look too far to prove he is probably paid:

http://www.enderlegroup.com/profile_rob.htm

Rob sits on the advisory councils for Lenovo, Toshiba, AMD, HP, Dell, Philips, Trusted Computing Group, and the Lifeboat Foundation.

As the article and his bio indicates, he sits on the advisory board for Toshiba which IMO is proof enough.

[doctorD]

Originally Posted by CAB

The media is lazy. Why? . . . the public tolerates it with 15 minute attention span, zero memory and no knowledge and understanding of history. We should demand better from the sources of the sources. In the mean time just shut the BS off and read a book.

I totally agree.

[Jeff Kleist]

Rob sits on the advisory councils for Lenovo, Toshiba, AMD, HP, Dell, Philips, Trusted Computing Group, and the Lifeboat Foundation.

Guess Microsoft canned him

[Cplhicks]

Ha, that was a pretty awesome piece by Hettrick. I remember his site from the "war" days, but I don't think he wrote anything this to the point back then. He's got quite a few good points in general. Why keep listening to "analysts" who are wrong all the time? And why the heck should people quote them? Maybe just 'cause they make people angry and get attention to the original article?

[aristotles]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Guess Microsoft canned him

Probably because all those predictions he made about the decline of the iPod and failure of the iPhone did not come true.

First he failed the in the format war against Sony and then the music player business. He was probably let go at time of the recent cuts in the Zune division at MSFT.

[Anthony P]

I think it is because he is contractual with MS.

[aristotles]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

I think it is because he is contractual with MS.

Right and MSFT decided to not renew his contract at the beginning of this year since they were planning on changing their focus away from media technologies.