Time Magazine recently published a list (completed by 24/7 Wall St.) of the “Top Ten Biggest Tech Failures Of The Past Decade.” Microsoft Vista, Microsoft Zune, Gateway, YouTube and the Segway all made the list. Time said that 24/7 Wall St. evaluated both start-ups and products that were “widely recognized,” and were available to anyone in the world. Time had a couple other qualifications to make the list including the rule that the product/company had to have the potential of bringing billions of dollars of revenue to its owner.
Here’s the list:
1. Microsoft Vista
2. Gateway
3. HD DVD
4. Vonage
5. YouTube
6. Sirius XM
7. Microsoft Zune
8. Palm
9. Iridium
10. Segway
Most of products/companies on the list are spot on, like Zune and Vista. However, I don’t see how YouTube, the largest video site on the web, is truly a failure. Yes, it’s not profitable yet and who knows when it will be. But Google only bought the video site a few years ago, and I think it’s too early to call this one a failure.
I can see why YouTube is on the list; due to the popular website’s lack of revenue income. However, I’m almost disappointed to see Microsoft Windows Vista on the list as it has become a standard server for all duo processor PCs.
Yeah, but were more people running it on their PCs that couldn’t tolerate all its problems.
Vista is only a failure from Microsofts perspective… Apple loves Vista. Vista hd sold more apples than any commercial apple did because after trying Vista you are definitely going to consider a Mac… even if you can’t afford it you will take a look…
So I bet apple loves vista… hopes windows 7 is just as good
))
Actually after I tried Vista it seemed similar enough to XP that I just continued using it.
You see, I like to think for myself rather than have a commercial tell me what works.
Good for you Jake. I too share your sentiments. When Vista came out is was trashed by critics and it was filled with bugs. I had XP at the time and never had any problems whatsoever and was skeptical about upgrading. I spoke with our IT guys at the university who were responsible for hundreds of computers and they hated Vista. They said they spent much more support time fixing PCs that ran Vista than those running XP. Needless to say, I’m still running XP without any kind of problems whatsoever.
and i am running vista without any problems for over a year now. if you dont know how to use a computer properly, dont buy one. oh, and there is absolutely no need to “talk to the guys at university” to evaluate a product, just buy it and try it. god damn noobs.
I too have been running Vista without any problems, but I avoid it like the plague. It’s a mess, it’s slow, it’s cumbersome, it’s a resource hog, it still needs AV software. Mac OS X FTW.
Yeah,
I get all my good tech news from Time magazine??
By looking at this list, obviously Time Magazine knows nothing about technology.
where are the 4chan dudes on this one?
They must deny the holocaust as well as all the other racist stuff they do.
No kidding, there was definitely an omission here:
11) The repeatedly hacked online poll offered by Time for the Most Influential People list.
I am going to go ahead and say it but I really don’t think Vista was a failure. I think the driver thing was utter nonsense. I installed Vista the minute it was available and have it on several machines. My home pc has never blue screened or even crashed once in almost 2 years. XP never could say that. Also Vista is much easier to install and updating it is a piece of cake. Drivers are very easy to manage. I would never go back to XP as so many make the claim. I think it got a lot of bad press for no reason or from people who couldnt understand the security even though it was rather simple.
I can say the same EXCEPT that there are slight usability probs (but that doesn’t = fail) and except that after about 1 year the installs get shaky, but thats the same with any OS you use everyday… Definitely my least favorite OS I’ve ever used, but not the greatest tech failure of the decade. That is completely stupid. Time is just epic fail.. kinda like following the urban dictionary link for marblecake the last time i read about Time lol.
“after about 1 year the installs get shaky, but thats the same with any OS you use everyday”
That is what living in a world of Microsoft Windows teaches you, but it certainly isn’t remotely accurate.
Unix-like systems actually get more stable over time, not less stable. As you tweak settings and fix annoyances, the system gets more robust, stable and useful. Also, your program settings can effortlessly follow you between different distros (operating system versions) and upgrades.
On a Microsoft Windows system, you must reboot for approximately 80% of installed Windows Updates. On a GNU/Linux system you can safely go for months without rebooting, because rebooting is not needed when installing program updates. The only time rebooting is needed is if the Linux kernel has been updated with some bug fix or security fix which you want to take advantage of.
My current desktop/server computer has currently been running for 124 days and has run 50,238,593 processes since bootup. I have thousands of installed programs, something which destroys the stability of Microsoft Windows. During the past 4 months it has been running, I have installed literally hundreds of program updates without needing to reboot.
I have am a very heavy computer user, having done web development, graphic design, photo editing, word processing, playing 3D games (a few times loading as many of 4 of the same MMORPG to play under different characters simultaneously), watching 1080p video, 720p video capture and editing, sound editing, programming and compiling apps, installing and trying out over 100 new programs, web browsing thousands of web pages, watching hundreds of videos, listening to thousands of music tracks, using dozens of Internet based apps (such as BitTorrent, FreeNet, IRC, web server, etc.) and hundreds of other tasks… and that’s just in the four months since I booted up this time.
The point of this posting is not to be a zealot for open source or whatever, just to point out the *complete* fallacy of your claim that computer operating systems must become unstable under heavy use. That is a concept which applies to Microsoft Windows and a few other operating systems, but not the majority of OSes. Even Microsoft’s predecessor, MS-DOS, did not suffer from any stability issues over time.
….. That is what living in a world of …… blah blah blah blah blah blah blah….. blah blah blah…. I have am a very heavy computer user, having done web development, graphic design, photo editing, word processing, playing 3D games….. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah……
Shut up, you prick. Go and play 3D pacman.
@go jetta: Nice, intellectual response to the arguments of Raven Morris. No wonder our world is f***ed up with such geniuses on it.
@ go jetta: And as I can not be sure that you really understand my first response, given your highly constructive comment, let’s make it clear: I am currently asking myself if your comment was a try to become famous on the net for making the worlds dumbest comment.
@Stephan Huebner,
You just beat me to it. Congrats to you.
“That is what living in a world of Microsoft Windows teaches you, but it certainly isn’t remotely accurate.”
Ditto, RM. Still other people know computing life can be better but they choose to continue suffering with Windows in order to conform to an arcane standard.
+10
I am not surprised that you can do all this. Unix and Linux distros are more stable due to the systematic OS philosophy followed years back.
Latest Windows are far better than before.
But the complexity of rewriting of the OS in Vista and market pressures to deliver the product release made Microsoft make many tough decisions.
These decisions ultimately caught up with them.
There is now such a misunderstood fear about Linux that it is not versatile and only for geeks that a common folks dont even try it.
On the other hand, office and ecosystem of Windows is still very strong. So, you have this positive feedback loop to keep Windows going even after there are truly better alternatives.
I completely agree with Leena’s assessment of YouTube. May be Time doesn’t get it? YouTube’s impact on the web is undeniable.
http://www.toomanyproblems.com
Maybe Time does get it… no profit means failure. They are out of the alpha and beta phases, thus they should have a model for profitability. No profit = failure when they are as mature as they are….
Next years list —> Twitter!!!!!!
I don’t think so, Twitter could easily add revenue by placing ads on each tweet sent, and each tweet’s page. Moreover, if they offer to sell placements for suggested followers during registration that’s another cash opportunity. Jason Calcanis already offered to pay Twitter $120k if they would add him.
+1
Twitter isn’t going to tag tweets with ads.
The major elephant in the room being that Twitter has been ad-free for just too long. I wouldn’t bet on them monetizing their service without destroying the user experience (ala MySpace) and alienating their users.
If Twitter do monetize in any way then I’d seriously expect a slow but steady exodus to equally excellent services such as identi.ca or a raft of new microblogging platforms built on laconica or the jaiku engine.
Ah, that’s a +1 to Waldo. Sorry Kevin
Rich:
+1 for you as if it means anything
I agree that Twitter won’t be over aggressive with their ad placement but the opportunity does exist and they will employ it at some point.
To assume that they would lose users if they implemented advertising is unfounded. Facebook runs ads and it’s certainly not dying off.
Well I wonder if that can stop TC from writing about it!
3 for MSFT as they endorsed HD DVD through the Xbox.
I’m glad someone said it
Youtube? Lol…
inb4 4chan makes Time a failure.
If this is seriously the best list they could come up with since 1999, that’s pretty sad.
what about Cuil?? come ON people.
I guess not everyone knew about it’s launch … at least I never believed it will kill Google from beginning!
Where is cuil now????
fucks wrong with vista??
and, ive been enjoying my zune very much. hardly a failure, you dolts.
Pretty sure you’re being sarcastic but…
I absolutely love Vista and have been running it since November of 2006 when it was RTM and distributed to us Microsoft Partners. It’s an amazing OS that I fell in love with and never had a single problem.
Most of these “vista sucks” bits was just bad press that snowballed.
no – not sarcastic. i really want to know what makes those two products suck so much that they are in the 10 ten failure list for an entire decade.
HAHAHA… you guys are great. You should tour as a comedic duo… like Abbot and Costello, The Smothers Brothers, Laurel & Hardy… good stuff guys… really good stuff.
why everyone is talking abt Failure products… think abt ratio of total number of products with successful/unsuccessful products… Microsoft have huge number of products is not it a great thing…
Agree on Youtube. We’re just now seeing online video become mainstream (see: Hulu), and it’s pretty stupid to write off Google just because the service has yet to make a profit.
By that logic, Facebook and MySpace should be on the list.
Granted, professional content will always see the advertising dollars, but if Youtube can figure out a way to allow all (and not very few) users make money from the site, we’ll see some action here.
But hey, it’s not like Time made “You” a person of the year or anything …
No, Myspace has made money for all parties involved (perhaps not Google), so that is why they aren’t on the list
Put a “support this user” button on every video. Like a video? Throw a dollar at it. Google takes 15%. Revenue!
I completely disagree with Zune being a failure. Zune is just a new product competing against an already well established dominate product. I think Zune is a great product and has a lot of happy users.
This is a terrible list. Segway? Those things are really cool for taking tours of the city, etc – but a failure? i dont think so. Granted Vista was not ready when is was first released, but its great now – its fast, stable, and great to use. YouTube – I dont think Google wanted to make it a money maker, after all thats what their advertising system is for. I would think YouTube is one of the Web’s successes after how much it has changed the Internet.
Whoever came up with this list much believe everything they read on the Internets.
downvote to the author
Coolness and business success aren’t the same thing. I think that’s the implied meaning of fail here.
Who are you and why are you here????? That type of logic is not normal in this neck of the woods. Usually cool equals success (i.e. Twitter) with or without profitability in the TC world.
List makes no sense to me… how youtube make it to the list????
I can see HDDVD and Iridium but how are the rest failure? They are still around?
Maybe they should have mentioned the AOL TIme Warner merger in there.
Iridium isnt a failure. Afterall its running costs are provided by the US Military. After that its they dont care what they charge cause they dont need to worry.
And thats why everybody doesnt have an iridium phone.
Palm may be able to get itself off this list with a successful Pre launch. I think they’ve been written off too early..
It would be good to know what they used as the definition of “failure”.
I’m struggling to comprehend how “Palm” is a “Failure”. While they are indeed struggling as a business at the moment, they set the bar accurately for “PDAs” and set the standard for others to follow.
Additionally, they have managed to create new products and release them on a regular basis. While not a rousing “success”, I can’t really see them as a failure either.
Vista and Zune on that list are no more accurate than YouTube. I’d hardly consider 150 million users a “failure”, and most people who actually *USE* it today seem to like it. If Vista is a failure today because of a poor launch 2 years ago, then XP is an utter catastrophe because of the nightmare launch period of its terrible first two years.
The Zune is the #2 device, quickly surpassing Creative and all other manufacturers. Not even Microsoft ever expected it to best the iPod – luckily, the device itself works great, the software is awesome, and they’re steadily improved it for *ALL* owners of the device including early adopters, instead of just new devices.
This list is retarded bullshit.
They only added that billion dollar stipulation so they wouldn’t have to list their own hacked poll.
If Zune is a failure I suppose OSX is a huge failure after so many years…..
you are joking..right? Comparing Zune to OS X
What’s the joke? If they call Vista a failure then surely Apple is a huge failure. The best Apple can do after all these decades is take 10% of the market.
TOTALLY agree with that. OS X is a bigger failure than Zune, since it can’t get much market share despite all these years of marketing and bullshit
The difference is that the Zune sucks. Market share can be ill gotten… market share doesn’t make a shitty product good. OS X is solid as a rock.
Dante:
Why does the Zune suck? Have you used one? I’d be willing to bet you haven’t.
Some of those items on the list are really not failures, will have to read the whole article to see if they gave at least a good reason.
Time has finally mastered the art of link-baiting.
Does anyone here actually read the original referenced articles? Time clearly defines what it considers a “failure.” It’s not necessarily whether a product is good; it’s whether it lived up to its massive expectations. So whether or not the Zune or the Segway is the next best thing to sliced headcheese doesn’t matter. They did not live up to their business hype; hence, failure.
the expectations for windows vista were very very low, with all the bad press, but after all it turned out to be a very good OS. So by your explanation, time should consider Vista a succes rather than a failure.
Same goes for youtube, nobody ever expected it to be so massively popular and such a game-changer as it has become.
zune: the same: expectations were superlow, microsoft making an ipod competitor, hahaha, everybody laughed, but it did get a decent percentage of market share.
How is Zune a failure? It has market share in the USA upwards of 8-9% now competing against a very formiddable foe in the iPod.
Zune Marketplace is way better than iTunes and Zune gets social and Apple doesn’t.
I think saying it is a failure so soon when Zune’s are still only available in the USA, Canada and I think the UK is a bit premature.
When Zune HD comes out and when Microsoft announces the PINK project for mobile phones shortly I think the game will change significantly not just against iPod’s but also iPhones. You bring these together with Xbox Live social and then Windows Mobile 7 and anywa, watch this space…..
I must be the luckiest person ever! 8 vista machines, 0 problems. lol – It did piss me off that I couldn’t change a file name extension, but power toys fixed that.
um. change the setting in explorer.
but no, youre not lucky – thats common with vista. it works. the haters have to get over it.
So do you just work for Microsoft, or do you actually believe your absurd words? For your sake, I hope you’re being paid for the promotion.
No operating system is without bugs, so if you claim to have a bug-free time, then you’re simply a liar.
Also, Vista was released with more serious bugs than all previous versions. A simple trip to Google can reveal hundreds of really serious and *known* bugs which were not fixed before release.
Once a Microsoft OS gets to around SP2 or 3 it tends to become usable. I would never recommend anyone touch a pre-release or initial-release for anything but a play-testing system.
The first OS X release also had many issues and bugs. Not just Windows that has this issue.
I think the macs should be there. All these years and that’s all the market share they have? Sad.
Yea that’s true. They’ve been out x amount of years and they only have a marginal hold of the desktop market.
This list failed.
and they only have 28 billion in cash. Massive failure.
How about the failure of the music industry to adapt to technology?
+1
http://www.altavista.com/
Segway should be number 1 with all the bitching that was done about how it was going revolutionize the way we get around that has got to be the biggest fail ever bigger than vista, zune and gateway put together. The only places you see segways are in some cities where police use them and tour groups in those same cities
That failure is one of the petroleum corporations doing, not the technology. There is no room (as far as the petroleum industry is concerned) for modern cities to have viable alternate forms of transportation. The only places you therefore see Segway gaining any popularity, is in places with lax driving regulations, where nobody cares what you do.
Yeah, I don’t see how YouTube is a failure either…Definitely not a failure for those who created it and I don’t see it being a failure for google. If it fails at google it’s thier fault not YouTubes
Really MSFT made the list 2.5-times. They were a major backer/supporter/proponent…at a minimum chalk one up to backing the wrong horse…
the biggest failure on the list is Time magazine.
If my company “fails” like Vista, I’ll be a very happy man.
Epic suck list. Makes Time appear hermit-like. Vista’s no fail. YouTube’s only fail is lack of profit- other than that it’s no fail (unless you consider mass concentrations of filthy subhumans posting an infinity of evil a fail).
What about Friendster. Wasn’t it suppose to be the daddy of all Social Networking Sites.
The reason Vista and the Zune were listed as failures is not because they’re bad products (that’s an individual choice), it’s because they were marketing failures. That has been collectively decided and is undeniable.
How are companies like Enron, Worldcom, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Global Crossing, and Myspace not on this list?
I worked at Ford for a couple years, so this is largely me being defensive, but they haven’t taken any bailout money like GM or Chrysler (or Toyota in Japan), their retail sales are up, they’re planning to increase production in the third quarter this year. I’m constantly bothered by people lumping all the domestic manufacturers together. It’s like saying Intel and AMD are doing the same (badly) because overall domestic CPU sales are down, which is a huge oversimplification.
MySpace shouldn’t be on the list because they still have a large user base, pioneered this space pretty effectively, and have made a profit doing so. If things fall apart, they can be in *next* decade’s failure list.
Enron and Worldcom are effectively utility companies; why you’d put them and car companies on a tech list, I have no idea.
I don’t know enough about Global Crossing to comment on them.
You are right, I shouldn’t have put Ford on that list, I thought about it after I hit post. Myspace is only profitable because companies like Google made mistakes of investing in them. After 2010, Myspace is in pretty deep s*** from what I can see.
Enron, Worldcom are utility companies, but their business still revolved around technology, no? Same with the car companies.
I guess if Worldcom shouldn’t be on that list then neither should Vonage.
Shouldn’t Itanium be on that list?
–
Chris
I wouldn’t call YouTube a failure. First of all its revolutionized the Web. Secondly, it give Google a huge advantage; they possess 43% of the market share for online video and their closest competitor is Fox Interactive Media with only 3.7%. Google at any time could drop advertising within the videos like Hulu does and begin generating revenue.
Revolutionized the web? By doing what, seeding illegal copyrighted content? Then I guess you’re right, no one had EVER done that before! There were plenty of legit video sites prior to youtube. Youtube became popular because they allowed illegal content, and THAT IS IT. The video quality is piss poor to boot. It’s a failure in the fact that it hemorrhages money to keep it going.
Worst list in the world.
Hahaha! – Three letters A. O. L…
Cmon. Of course the deadwood at Time Inc would never admit this – but what is really pathetic is that they don’t even SEE it. AIM had everything needed to completely whack both Twitter and Skype – including deeply embedded use patterns, a gigantic social graph, distribution to die for – and they still don’t have a clue.
More from Time Inc in the no clue dept? Well, start with WinAmp – in fact, just the decision to dump/fire/get rid of Justin Frankel – one of the all-time stupid moves. Jeez. I hardly know what to say. No, I do know what to say. These dudes in suits are complete, utter fools. The perfect combination of arrogance and ignorance.
For the record, I have never worked for, attempted to do any business with, or carry any sort of grudge against Time Inc.. I never even really read Time, the magazine. It’s just that chump behavior really ought to be called out, on general principles. So this ain’t sour grapes.
Now ask me what I *really* think.
i think as ai get better youtube will be a cash cow in the future
So if Zune at 8-9% market share is a failure then why isn’t Mac OSx at 5% global desktop OS share and Linux Distro at 1% global share not on the list?
In addition, Vista still has MORE market share than Mac OSx even though it is being called a ‘failure’. Like most others on here it ran fineon my PC’s, never had a problem.
Time = Epic fail.
Since Microsoft was all for HD DVD’s I consider that another failure for them.
How can you leave out Windows Me. The Windows 98SE downgrade!!
Where’s the Apple Pippin and Newton?
The list is called the, “Top Ten Biggest Tech Failures Of The Past Decade.”
Get a clue.
This list is fail. Honestly, stop with the Vista hate. I have been using Vista x64 for a while now and have had no problems.
Ok guys…!!! Everybody listen up.. Sadiq here hasn’t had any problems on his computer. So, the editors of Time magazine are going to rewrite their list and issue an apology because Sadiq is doing good…
Thanks Sadiq…keep up the good work!!
That’s a terrible list. I could list a handful of things that were actual failures. I don’t see how Zune can be considered a failure.
When compared to iPod? ofcourse it looks like a failure, but on it’s own its doing pretty well.
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Time is comparing the Zune to the iPod.
Say, when was the last time you squirted a song to another Zune owner?
isn’t this a bit of the pot calling the kettle black? talk about failures — how about the TIME Mag business which was once the gold standard and is now used to clean up dog poop
Could be the finest headline I’ve read in months. How can you not click on that?!
Pretty lame list. And if it’s in no particular order why is it numbered?