Time's The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade

[Babbles]

LINK

The list:

Microsoft Vista
Gateway
HD DVD
Vonage
YouTube
Sirius XM
Microsoft Zune
Palm
Iridium
Segway



I am not so sure if I agree with most of these as colossal tech failures.

Vista - Yeah so people bitch about it, but I don't think it's that bad. If they really wanted to cite a genuine Microsoft tech failure they should have put Windows Millennium on the list.

Gateway - They are somewhat bit players now, but over the past ten years they were pretty damn popular and successful.

HD-DVD - Obviously Blu-Ray won out, but I wouldn't put this down as one of the largest tech failures within the past ten years; it was still a very good product.

Vonage - They basically brought VOIP to consumers; I am not sure how they really can be considered a big failure within the past ten years.

YouTube - WTF, really? One of the biggest tech failures?? What??

Sirius XM - Their profits suck, or are non-existent, but in terms of technology I can hardly see how they are really a failure.

Zune - They are doing quite well. I suppose the author's criteria must be that anything other than an iPod is a big failure.

Palm - They are playing a massive game of catch-up right now, but up until a few years ago the Palm Treos were big deals and really spurred on a lot of smart-phone technology.

Iridium - I'm not even sure what this is, so perhaps this is a sort of failure.

Segway - Obviously not real popular for consumers, however in just about every touristy city I have been in you see tons of these for rentals or for tour guides. It is really a pretty unique market that favors these things. However I suppose many people could consider it a tech failure, but I wouldn't think it would be one of the largest failures over the past ten years.

 

[Koing]

Well failure as in did badly relative to it's field or in terms of commerical success?

HD-DVD is all but DEAD so that is a failure, especially with the amount of £££ smashed in it's direction.
Zune got dominated and has little market share. Yes it's a failure.
Segway, yes a commercial failure

IMO anything that didn't get commerical success is pretty much a failure.

Koing

 

[actuarial]

This list doesn't make any sense, for basically the reasons you gave above.

I do kind of agree with HD-DVD though. When you lose a format war with SONY it's just plain embarassing!

 

[Beev]

That list fucking sucks.

 

[Crono]

Financial failure list, not failure for tech innovation.

EDIT: At least Koing kinda got it

 

[Fenixgoon]

fail list is fail:

Microsoft Vista - people are too stupid to know how to actually work computers.
Gateway - i'd kill for a gateway p-series laptop
HD DVD - someone has to win out. it's not like the market plays nicely.
Vonage - VOIP way cheaper than traditional services? complete failure
YouTube - while it has brought out the dregs of society onto the internet, youtube is now a part of popular culture.
Sirius XM - the merger certainly hasn't done wonders for profitability, but they're the only ones in on the venture. takes a lot of balls.
Microsoft Zune - the zune is to the ipod what an XP/Vista are to OSX. one's got 90% marketshare, the other doesn't. but that doesn't mean the zune isn't competitive.
Palm - no clue. haven't paid attention to palm in a while.
Iridium - what's iridium, besides an element on the periodic table?
Segway - i'll agree to this. i think it's retarded. it may have a niche market, but it certainly didn't deliver on the hype (which you probably need to get investors)

 

[James Bond]

Worst list ever! YouTube? Sirius? Wtf?

IRIDIUM:

Iridium, the global satellite phone company backed by Motorola (MOT), filed for bankruptcy in 1999, after the company had spent $5 billion to build and launch its infrastructure of satellites to provide worldwide wireless phone service. At the time, it was one of the 20 largest bankruptcies in US history. To work properly, the system needed 66 satellites. The creation of this enormous system forced the company to default on $1.5 billion of debt. The service had been such a failure that it only had 10,000 subscribers. This was, in part, due to technical difficulties with Iridium's first handsets. According to a Dartmouth Tuck Business School case study on the history of Iridium in 1998, the company forecast that it would have 500,000 subscribers by the following year. But, the service was expensive for customers, and the cellular phone business had started to take hold as its infrastructure was built out in most of the large developed countries. An Iridium handset cost $3,000 and talk time was as much as $5 a minute. Cellular service was not as broadly available, but it was far less expensive.Technology difficulties also made the service unpopular. Because Iridium's technology depended on line-of-sight between the phone antenna and the orbiting satellite, subscribers were unable to use the phone inside moving cars, inside buildings, and in many urban areas.

Edit: Wow, Iridium was big time fail.

 

[Crono]

OP and everyone here fails at reading comprehension. Read the article.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Babbles
LINK
YouTube - WTF, really? One of the biggest tech failures?? What??

I think this is because YouTube is bleeding money. They've yet to realize anything close to a profit.

edit: Yep, reading the article explains it.

YouTube is the largest video sharing site in the world. According to comScore, 99.7 million viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube.com in the US during March 2009. In November 2006, Google (GOOG) bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. There is a fairly good chance that the search company will never get a return on that investment. YouTube has not come up with a model to make money by either selling advertising or charging for premium content, even though it has an a enormous audience and library of content. Most of the video content placed on YouTube is of such low quality that marketers are reluctant to marry it with their messages. Google has said, in regulatory filings, that YouTube revenue is "not material." Forbes estimated that the site's 2008 sales were $200 million. Bear Stearns put YouTube's 2008 domestic revenue at $90 million. Recently, Credit Suisse estimated that YouTube will lose $470 million this year primarily due to the costs of the storage and bandwidth required to run the website. The same analyst said that YouTube will bring in $240 million this year, but that is only up 20% from 2008. If this analysis is even close to correct, YouTube would have to triple its revenue to breakeven. The New York Times recently wrote that "while YouTube, along with other new media properties like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, is seen as leading the challenge against traditional media companies, the company itself is struggling to profit from its digital popularity." YouTube is big, but that has not made it a success.

 

[Gothgar]

stupid fucking list

 

[Gothgar]

someone should make a list:

My list of Time's biggest fucking stupid Lists list

Then you could start off with this one, go to some of their many other lists that dont make fucking sense at all either

 

[Greenman]

It all makes sense to me. Youtube seemed odd at first, but then I recalled that google paid a ludicrous price for it.

 

[halik]

RTFA they're taking about commercial failures/

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Crono
OP and everyone here fails at reading comprehension. Read the article.

I assume you're referring to this:

24/7 Wall St. looked at both start-ups and products introduced by companies that did not survive to create a list of the most colossal tech failures of the last decade. To make the list, a product had to be widely recognized and widely available to customers. It had to be aimed at a large global market. It had to be technologically equal to or superior to its competition. It had to be a product or new company that had the possibility of bringing in billions of dollars in revenue based on the sales of similar or competing products. Finally, it had to clearly miss the mark of living up to the potential that its creators expected, and that the public and press were lead [sic] to believe was possible.

Still not sure why Youtube belongs on there. Replace Youtube with Playstation 3.

Edit: OK, you could say Youtube is a financial failure. But from the creators' perspective it isn't. I'm sure their goal from the start was to get bought for big bucks, and they did.

 

[Saint Nick]

I think YouTube is a big technical failure. It was nice early on, but as the site became hammered and bogged down by video watchers, the site suffered, and now my videos are constantly "buffering".

Vista is a technical failure because it had driver and software issues from the start and took about a year before it became relatively decent. Now its already being replaced.

I don't feel Palm is a big failure at all. They were innovators. They pretty much created the hand held PDA, didn't they? They had a good run but got dominated by better products. TECHNICALLY, they are a good product. They just didn't succeed commercially.

Gateway didn't fail technically at all. They had a great product and a great service. Again, commercial failure.

WTF to the rest of the list. Stupid fucking list.

I like Gothgar's idea, actually :thumbsup:

 

[PokerGuy]

Guys, it's a list of FINANCIAL failures in the tech world. Youtube is wonderful for clips and such, but it doesn't make much money (if at all). They have not been able to capitalize on the huge popularity. Zune is just a dismal failure.

Vista was not so much a technical failure (it probably works OK for most), but a financial failure (most corporate customers are skipping vista and going for win 7) and most certainly a PR failure as it is seen as a terrible product (no matter what you think of the actual performance, it's seen as such by the non-geek public).

I'd say that's a pretty good list.

 

[Saint Nick]

Originally posted by: halik
RTFA they're taking about commercial failures/

Then why is the article called The 10 Biggest Tech Failures?

 

[guyver01]

The article should be renamed then to "Top 10 Tech Products that are insanely popular but fail at making money"

 

[nageov3t]

gateway still makes some of the best budget gaming laptops on the market, imo

 

[Saint Nick]

I think there is a mass misunderstanding here.

I read the article and I suppose now it makes sense. But...they should have titled it differently

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Babbles

Segway

Microsoft Vista

This will end up being a success for Microsoft in that it will make people love Windows 7 and adopt it quickly.

Gateway

The retail stores were there downfall.

HD DVD

Arguably the best format for movies at launch. BRD Profile 2.0 and above has surpassed it. Thankfully, that war is over and it should never have occurred.

Vonage

ISP phone service killed it.

YouTube

Big success, Google payed a crap load of money for them. They turned a lawsuit magnet that turned little profit into a massive cash out cheque. :thumbsup:

Sirius XM

It is the future, perhaps we are not ready for it yet.

Microsoft Zune

The ipod must fall, the newer zunes are very nice.

Palm

They slipped and cannot catch up, like Motorola in the cell phone business.

Iridium

Once the problems with satellite phones are resolved, they will be the way to go. Sat phones were the only things working after Katrina (save for HAM radios on generators).

Segway

Everything is worth what the purchaser is willing to pay...

 

[Crono]

Originally posted by: NightDarker

Originally posted by: halik
RTFA they're taking about commercial failures/

Then why is the article called The 10 Biggest Tech Failures?

Should be "Tech Company" or "Tech Company Financial Failures". They were probably counting on people actually reading the article, though.

 

[Genx87]

Microsoft Vista - Not at all. Vista's adoption rate is on the same pace as any other Microsoft OS. Plus his silly comment at the end about Windows 7. Windows 7 is Vista at the core.

Gateway - Yes I agree. Their model was silly. They didnt target business like they should and were late to the party on laptops.

HD DVD - I dont think he mentions Time Warners death blow. Instead tries to pin it on Walmart?!?!? ok

Vonage - Personally I think any home land line service is doomed to failure unless it is free. Cell phones are simply too convenient.

YouTube - I agree with the idea it is a failure due to a business model they cant get to work. But it has imo revolutionized how we view video.

Sirius XM - I always felt this was a tough sell to consumers. Selling radio at a premium. Apparently there are nearly 19 million people who disagree with me. However it still hasnt come close to turning a profit.

Microsoft Zune - A little clunkly from my experience.

Palm - Absolutely. They were the first with PDA's but failed to understand their own market. Now they are a small player with a shitty OS that doesnt like GoDaddy level 2 certs /facepalm

Iridium - Good idea bad implementation and really not enough demand. Their wiki page states one of their biggest customers is the United States military in the ME.

Segway - Absolutely and what an arrogant bunch of aholes too boot. Cost way too much. Unsurprising one of the biggest customers is the United States govt. The cash source for failed business in case you didnt notice.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

that list of failures is a huge failure.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: NightDarker

I don't feel Palm is a big failure at all. They were innovators. They pretty much created the hand held PDA, didn't they?

No. I assume you mean touchscreen PDA, because primitive electronic organizers existed in the 80s. But still, no. I'm not sure who had the first touchscreen PDA, but Apple's MessagePad came out well before the Palm Pilot.