Forecasting the future - or more precisely, attempting to forecast the future - is an exercise as old as mankind itself. The ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, for example, engaged in all kinds of rituals and propitiatory sacrifices to ensure good fortune in their future endeavors. Back then, as it is still today, there were all sorts of individuals whose role was to "peer into the future" for the benefit of the uninitiated. More often than not, these foretellers offered up more questions than answers. Consider the famous example of the oracle at Delphi who is said to have answered a visiting king asking whether the result of his campaign would be positive with a phrase that translates more or less to: "Thou shalt depart, thou shalt return never in war shalt thou die." The key to understanding the response is the placement of the missing comma. Place it after the "never," and the prophecy spells doom. Place it right before, and life is good - not to mention long. While less overtly cryptic, it seems that many of today's forecasts about IT trends were prepared by ancient oracles.