Bill Gates is said to have said in 1998 that e-readers would never catch on.
According to a report in the UK's Telegraph, Microsoft is also supposed to have rejected the idea of a micro-blogging platform like Twitter.
In March this year, Twitter turned six and a blog post on the site said that it had over 140 million active users who posted over 340 million Tweets a day.
Insofar as e-readers are concerned, Digitimes Research said that in calendar year 2011, global shipments stood at 22.82 million units, up 107 per cent when compared to 2010.
Bill Gates is also alleged to have said that 640 kB of RAM is enough for everybody, but he has denied it.
IT industry veterans have made claims that have failed. For instance, Michael Dell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dell, when asked about Apple in October 1997 said, "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
In April this year, Apple became the second company after Microsoft to touch a market capitalisation of $600 billion.