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The 142 Biggest Product Failures of All Time

seasoned_geek by seasoned_geek

I don’t care if I’m promoting a site which pushes ads at you . . . this time. I haven’t even made it to the end of the list, but I had to create this post. You have to take a few minutes out of your day and read this post.

Did you know Microsoft once tried to market a “smart watch?” I didn’t.  Number 35 on the list really shocked me.

Not only did they try to clone a Blackberry, they pulled Kin One and Kin Two from market after only 6 weeks!

Come on. How many of you bought one or more of the products on that list? Fess up! If you are of a “certain age” you tried “New Coke.” Many of you probably were forced to use a computer with Windows Vista preinstalled. Nothing like having failure built in, eh?

Since this blog is mostly read by IT geeks, a better question would be.

How many of you will fess up to having had a hand in creating one or more of these products?

 

Be sure to check out #74 on the list!

Roland Hughes started his IT career in the early 1980s. He quickly became a consultant and president of Logikal Solutions, a software consulting firm specializing in OpenVMS application and C++/Qt touchscreen/embedded Linux development. Early in his career he became involved in what is now called cross platform development. Given the dearth of useful books on the subject he ventured into the world of professional author in 1995 writing the first of the "Zinc It!" book series for John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc.

A decade later he released a massive (nearly 800 pages) tome "The Minimum You Need to Know to Be an OpenVMS Application Developer" which tried to encapsulate the essential skills gained over what was nearly a 20 year career at that point. From there "The Minimum You Need to Know" book series was born.

Three years later he wrote his first novel "Infinite Exposure" which got much notice from people involved in the banking and financial security worlds. Some of the attacks predicted in that book have since come to pass. While it was not originally intended to be a trilogy, it became the first book of "The Earth That Was" trilogy:
Infinite Exposure
Lesedi - The Greatest Lie Ever Told
John Smith - Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars

When he is not consulting Roland Hughes posts about technology and sometimes politics on his blog. He also has regularly scheduled Sunday posts appearing on the Interesting Authors blog.