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Buying Guide: Top 10 Biggest Technology Flops
Contents
- Top 10 Biggest Technology Flops
- 4 - 6
- 7 - 10
- Honorable Mentions
When you begin to think about a list of the top technology flops, you quickly uncover an embarrassment of riches. There have been a wide range of failed product introductions. The hardest thing about winnowing through all the contenders is simply separating the truly misguided from the simply unlucky. And how do you keep the list from focusing on the dot-com bubble years? You could pull together a baker's dozen of top 10 lists from 1998 to 2001 alone. In this list, I've tried to select a wide range of truly bad products, poorly timed introductions, and other colossal failures. But this list is by no means an end. If you've got ideas for the next list, send them to me! I'll be happy to include them in the Top 10 Biggest Technology Flops, part 2 (Yes, I'm quite sure there will be a part 2.). And don't miss the honorable mentions at the end. I've highlighted five that almost made the list, but weren't quite bad enough.
1. The Coordinator: What do you get when the founder of EST, a self-actualization cult, turns his hand to software? Answer: The Coordinator—groupware that won't let you go to the bathroom! Bill Machrone, writing in the pages of PC Magazine, called it "the worst piece of software ever." This highly-structured, e-mail-based groupware product featured a highly complex codification of communications rules. PC/Computing magazine said, in 1988, that "it succeeds in creating structure, but it also succeeds in making me feel uneasy as it tries to form my human exchanges in to cold contracts." It's a good thing DaVinci Software purchased the product and put it out of its misery before an instant-messaging add-on could be developed.
2. General Magic: I knew this one was going to be a disaster during the introduction announcement. It was held in a large ballroom peppered with employees and other shills. Every time Andy Herzfeld announced another me-too feature, the entire room erupted in applause as if it was the most brilliant thing ever. For example, a program called E-Mail Connection had been auto-loading e-mail addresses into your on-line address book for a year or so, yet the announcement of this "first ever" feature was greeted by more deafening applause than if The Pope had entered the room. The logo was great. The T-shirt rocked. The product, alas, was abysmal.
3. Gizmondo: A few years ago it looked like Nintendo was about to face heavy competition in the handheld gaming space. Sony was readying the PSP, and UK startup Gizmondo was making waves with talk of its personal communicator. The company claimed it would sell half a million units when it launched. It even opened a Gizmondo store on Regent Street in London, which looked pretty anemic when I strolled by about a year ago. The company didn't just lose $400 million dollars, releasing a product that was never very usable. Nope, it was also the epicenter of a twisted corporate story that included the destruction of a million-dollar Ferrari, steroids, the Swedish mafia, and enough bad craziness to fill a police ledger a mile long.—Continue reading more of our Top 10 Technology Flops story >