Mouse Redundant In Five Years, Says Gartner Comments

Potentially in environments where a regular mouse isn't very practical - like home theatre - other innovations may develop (and be welcomed).

In the office desktop environment, it's hard to see the humble mouse disappearing. Even if we all had affordable, multi-touch 24" monitors... just as the keyboard isn't really under threat despite the advances in speech-to-text technology.

Won't stop 'em trying though :)

... and we're all going to have internet-enabled refrigerators too (remember those?).

Touch screens will work for some applications, mostly stuff where you don't need to input very much, but I can't imagine it will be very easy to find a comfortable position for using both keyboard and touch screen - you will get arm-ache. As for the other stuff, gestures may be fine for selection from menu driven systems but I bet a mouse will still win when even a modicum of precision is required.

History suggests and "...will be obsolete within 5 years" statements should be viewed with skepticism.

A quote from the article:

"The mouse works fine in the desktop environment but for home entertainment or working on a notebook it's over," declared analyst Steve Prentice."

Hardly 'the mouse is redundant' or 'say goodbye to the computer mouse'. In fact the 'prediction' doesn't appear to be stating anything other than the obvious fact that very few people are going to use a mouse on the move or on their sofa.

Personally I'm hoping the trackballs will come back into force.