Biggest Tech Failures of The Last 10+ Years

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TechSpot has posted a list of what they believe are the biggest tech failures of the last decade. What do you think should have been on the list?

There are two surefire ways to have your name immortalized in history: succeed in your stride toward greatness or, as so many tech firms did in 2011, faceplant trying.
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Have to strongly disagree that the windows tablet was a fail. Just look at the Ipad and windows 8 will be on Tablets soon too. The 2001 tablet wasn't so much a fail, as it was a decade ahead of the times
 
i disagree with Vista. It was never that bad, it still isn't bad. It is just that most people had shitty 5 year old computers and couldn't use it or use their old all hardware.

it most certainly is not a top 10 worst for the last decade.
 
Apple's Mobileme and Ping. They both failed worse than Myspace and Windows Vista.
 
Draiko said:
Apple's Mobileme and Ping. They both failed worse than Myspace and Windows Vista.
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Mobileme is so annoying; as is quicktime and safari trying to update through iTunes (thus why I got rid of it all.)
 
Bigbacon said:
i disagree with Vista. It was never that bad, it still isn't bad. It is just that most people had shitty 5 year old computers and couldn't use it or use their old all hardware.

it most certainly is not a top 10 worst for the last decade.
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Definitely agree. If stupid OEM's wouldn't have installed Vista on PC's with Celeron cpu's and 1GB or less of ram Vista would have faired far better.
 
TMCM said:
Have to strongly disagree that the windows tablet was a fail. Just look at the Ipad and windows 8 will be on Tablets soon too. The 2001 tablet wasn't so much a fail, as it was a decade ahead of the times
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For how much R&D with nothing to show for it yet...Win tablets are still a waste of company $$$$$$ as of yet. Similar to the iPad competitors not making much of a dent in iPad marketshare.
 
Calling Dreamcast a failure is like......I don't know, it's just really a bad thing to do.
 
It's somewhat unfair to anchor other "Android tablets" with the disastrous TouchPad and Playbook.

Also, seeing the Dreamcast on that list makes me so salty. PSO and Jet Set Radio all day everyday.
 
naninani said:
It's somewhat unfair to anchor other "Android tablets" with the disastrous TouchPad and Playbook.

Also, seeing the Dreamcast on that list makes me so salty. PSO and Jet Set Radio all day everyday.
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Calling the Touchpad "disastrous" is a bit unfair...applying that label to HP's handling of their firesale and the product line itself, now that is more than fair. Was also a great object lesson for tablet makers. People will buy non-iPad tablets fast...but they won't pay iPad premiums for them.
 
Bigbacon said:
i disagree with Vista. It was never that bad, it still isn't bad. It is just that most people had shitty 5 year old computers and couldn't use it or use their old all hardware.

it most certainly is not a top 10 worst for the last decade.
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I use Vista all the time at home. I think the writer of the article heard of people complaining about Vista and took it at face value.
 
naninani said:
It's somewhat unfair to anchor other "Android tablets" with the disastrous TouchPad and Playbook.

Also, seeing the Dreamcast on that list makes me so salty. PSO and Jet Set Radio all day everyday.
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Well, the Dreamcast DID fail, and it failed so hard that it took Sega out of the hardware game. Although to be fair, it was Sega's handling of the entire thing that did it in.

And Android tablets aren't failures. They sell pretty well at this point, depending on which ones you look at like the Asus tablets and the Kindle Fire and Nook tablets.
 
TMCM said:
Have to strongly disagree that the windows tablet was a fail. Just look at the Ipad and windows 8 will be on Tablets soon too. The 2001 tablet wasn't so much a fail, as it was a decade ahead of the times
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The Tablet PC was and still is a great idea but the problems with them were threefold. The hardware wasn't there, Windows prior to Windows 8 doesn't really work well on touch screens and they were expensive.

That said they still offered some unique and powerful capabilities especially for artists and note takers. But I believe that the three aforementioned problems are after a decade finally going to be resolved. For all of the hate that some have of Windows 8 on the desktop its quite compelling on tablets, especially x86 devices. If Intel and OEMs have gotten their act together and Windows 8 performs well on the new Atoms there could be x86 tablets with great performance the size and weight of the iPad with battery life very close to it that also serves as a full function computers for similar prices to mobile OS devices.

At any rate, Microsoft is pretty much betting its future on touch and tablets. If the Tablet PC 2.0, a.k.a Windows 8 is a failure then Microsoft going to go down with it.
 
Bigbacon said:
i disagree with Vista. It was never that bad, it still isn't bad. It is just that most people had shitty 5 year old computers and couldn't use it or use their old all hardware.

it most certainly is not a top 10 worst for the last decade.
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Agreed.
 
TMCM said:
Have to strongly disagree that the windows tablet was a fail. Just look at the Ipad and windows 8 will be on Tablets soon too. The 2001 tablet wasn't so much a fail, as it was a decade ahead of the times
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What does Windows 8 have to do with it? The Tablet PC was a massive and total failure.
 
i think the android tablet thing they just lumped all together because there are A LOT of really really shitty android tablets out there flooding the market. There are good android tablets, but there are a lot of really bad ones.

Also, i think all the constant updates to the OS didn't really help that. They went through a lot of major updates and many of the tablets out there still run the really old 2.x versions still.
 
Bigbacon said:
i disagree with Vista. It was never that bad, it still isn't bad. It is just that most people had shitty 5 year old computers and couldn't use it or use their old all hardware.

it most certainly is not a top 10 worst for the last decade.
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Vista was pretty bad on release. After SP1 and SP2, though, it's fine.
 
naninani said:
It's somewhat unfair to anchor other "Android tablets" with the disastrous TouchPad and Playbook.

Also, seeing the Dreamcast on that list makes me so salty. PSO and Jet Set Radio all day everyday.
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I agree. The Dreamcast was a masterpiece, and it had great games. It was more a victim of bad timing than anything else.
 
Failures:

WindowsME
HD-DVDS
DRM on PC's
MySpace

I dont really consider anything else on that list a failure of the product. More like a failure of its manufacturer's implementation and marketing.
 
Bigbacon said:
i think the android tablet thing they just lumped all together because there are A LOT of really really shitty android tablets out there flooding the market. There are good android tablets, but there are a lot of really bad ones.

Also, i think all the constant updates to the OS didn't really help that. They went through a lot of major updates and many of the tablets out there still run the really old 2.x versions still.
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Still market share vs the iPad is crap, so considered a failure. That is why Vista is on there as well. Its not that they are bad products, just corporate failures.
 
jadams said:
Failures:

WindowsME
HD-DVDS
DRM on PC's
MySpace

I dont really consider anything else on that list a failure of the product. More like a failure of its manufacturer's implementation and marketing.
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I dunno man, Windows ME was pretty much a failure all around.
 
kumquat said:
What does Windows 8 have to do with it? The Tablet PC was a massive and total failure.
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Convertible tablets from HP, Gateway, Dell, and Lenovo all seem to do pretty well :shrug:

There is a fairly big market for students that want to take notes on their laptops and such... and there has been for many years, it's just that the technology is finally getting good enough you can have an awesome cpu and form factor for one. I also expect it to grow greatly with Ultrabooks and ARM based win8 tablets too though.
 
jadams said:
Failures:

WindowsME
HD-DVDS
DRM on PC's
MySpace

I dont really consider anything else on that list a failure of the product. More like a failure of its manufacturer's implementation and marketing.
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And it's hard to call myspace a failure with how popular it got and how much money they made selling it before the big media let it doe...
 
I agree with the OS choices and the NGage.

But why aren't AMD graphics drivers on that list?!
 
Can someone point out these super awesome tastic ipad numbers everyone is talking about? Can we get ones that compare all of android tablets (ereads if they run apps) to ipads? not all IOS devices to one specific android tablet?

Not saying they don't have the numbers just saying that I don't think its that huge of a leap. By virtue of the fact that you now see the android symbol on just about any advertised app its not a failure, or that if a place releases an app and there is no android equivalent they get a lot of complaints.

The dreamcast while not a hit boarders on being a failure. Everyone wanted to compare it to the PS2 and xbox, when it was really a very late entry into the N64 PS race. Even then it was more powerful than the PS2 and was more ready for Today's seemingly required 4 player system. They did have issues... like the ramped no modification piracy.

About it being so bad it knocked Sega out the hardware market, I'd argue that they were going that route anyway, the DC/Naomi as well as the Saturn were made from off the shelf parts. Arcade units after that became PC based in most regards too. At that point it really doesn't pay to have you own system when you can develop for a wider audience of everyone, they simply got out of a crowded market.
 
The iPad, by itself, makes up something like 75% of all tablet sales in the US. Comparing the iPad to any individual Android tablet would be silly.
 
I understand the article title notates 10+ years, but why would you list Windows ME when it came out eons ago? It seems campy. Anyways...

They've mixed great products that didn't succeed with products that were bad and didn't succeed. Products that were great but didn't succeed as intended:

  • Dreamcast
  • MySpace
  • Vista

Dreamcast had the most successful launch of any platform up unto it's release - and is still might hold that record. It's definitely has the biggest cult following out of any console bar none.

MySpace spurred the entire social movement and it lasted for years. How is this a failure? Just because Facebook rains supreme we consider another vendor a failure?

Vista gets a bad rap. Yes driver support was bad, but that's it. The only failure it had was the business sector didn't pick it up. Much of the public migrated already from XP to Vista either on their own or though purchasing new machines.

/rant
 
Wow completely crap list.

More accurate would be "marketing failures" not "tech" failures.

-Vista. After reading comments here and elsewhere, plus lots of anecdotal stories, it seems to me that Vista is actually well-liked among tech-savvy people. I personally have 4 of my computers with it, and none with 7.
 
MavericK96 said:
Not quite.
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That's global.

That article says the iPad is about 58% globally. Current 2012 figures put the global iPad marketshare at 68%:

http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/03/kindle-fire-market-share-q1/

"Apple shipped 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, down from 15.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, and grew its worldwide share from 54.7% in 4Q11 to 68% in 1Q12."

Nielsen pegged the iPad at 82% market share in the US a year ago.

http://www.slashgear.com/sure-the-ipad-has-82-market-share-but-will-it-last-09150426/
 
Time to rip this apart.

#1 Windows ME

Yea it failed and it deserves to fail.

#2 Dreamcast

Can we honestly call the Dreamcast a failure? This thing was in demand long after it was canned. It failed because Sega wanted to kill it.

#3 Microsoft Tablet PCs

These failed for the same reason why non Apple tablets are failing. They're stupid and people will buy anything made by Apple, even a tablet.

#4 Ngage

It failed but yet today a lot of our modern smart phones can thank devices like these that paved the way. It was a great idea, just poorly engineered. How many people believe that Symbian phones were one of the first smart phones that were ahead by nearly a decade from the iPhone?

#5 HD-DVD

This failed for the same reason why the Dreamcast failed. Since Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were standards fighting each other one of them had to live. Unfortunately with services like Netflix nobody really cared about these new formats. HD-DVD was sacrificed so that Blu-Ray would survive to fight streaming media. That fight isn't going well today.

#6 UMPCs

Who said they're dead? Windows 8 is going to try to recreate them, just without a keyboard. ;)

#7 Palm Foleo

Palm failed long before this even mattered.

#8 Vista

Yep it sucked and is quickly disappearing off the face of the earth. Then again Windows 7 could be considered Vista 1.1. So it didn't really fail, just got a whole new name.

#9

Nobody likes DRM in anything. Music, Movies, as well as video games.

#10

It failed for the same reason why Google+ is failing. FACEBOOK
 
umm... not really a "tech failure". Car is "techy", but not in the same class as "electronics" and "OS"es.

/delete
 
tazeat said:
Convertible tablets from HP, Gateway, Dell, and Lenovo all seem to do pretty well :shrug:

There is a fairly big market for students that want to take notes on their laptops and such... and there has been for many years, it's just that the technology is finally getting good enough you can have an awesome cpu and form factor for one. I also expect it to grow greatly with Ultrabooks and ARM based win8 tablets too though.
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Even at their current state, there's just nothing like good Tablet PCs for note taking when combined with OneNote. There are a few Android devices that have pens, there's a digital pen add-on for the iPad now but neither platform has the very powerful support digital ink that Windows 7 has and 8 seems to be even just a bit better from my observation, the handwriting recognition is extremely fast and accurate and searching on ink is incredibly useful.

Microsoft and OEMs really need to push digital ink tablets in the educational market and draw on some of the excitement that Courier was generating. There's no reason why Windows 8 couldn't power a Courier like device with two folding screens and a digital pen.

The opportunity is there to do a lot of things to distinguish Windows 8 tablets from the iPad and Android if Microsoft and OEMs actually try. The question is will they. I think that they will as Windows 8 can power a lot of interesting hardware and considering flat lined PC sales. OEMs should be motivated to produce as many new and interesting form factors and devices as they can to drive sales.
 
Uh...that list has Myspace and omits DIGG v4???

DIGG v4 took a company potentially worth a billion+ dollars down to worth peanuts.
 
I used a N Gage QD untill a few years ago lol. Im writing this on my Windows tablet its a HP TC1100 with a 1.2 GHz Pentium M and 1.5 gigs of ram, 80 gigs of hardrive and I have never found it to be lacking.

Always wanted a OQO UMPC.

Weak bias list is weak and bias.
 
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