PCMag.com has this article entitled 21 Great Technologies That Failed with examples split more or less evenly between Microsoft and Apple. Here is the abbreviated list.
10 Great Microsoft Technologies That Failed
- WebTV – 1997
- Tablet PCs – 2002
- WinFS – 1990s
- Sidewalk.com -1997
- OS/2 – 1987
- Passport – 2000
- Windows Live Spaces – 2004
- .NET – 2002
- WinG – 1993
- Sidewinder Freestyle Pro – 1998
11 Great Apple Technologies That Failed
- OpenDoc – 1992
- Cyberdog -1996
- HyperCard – 1987
- Newton – 1993
- PowerBook Duo 230 – 1992
- Mac G4 Cube – 1999
- eWorld – 1994
- Macintosh TV – 1993
- Mac Quadra 610 DOS Compatible – 1994
- Bandai Pippin – 1996
- QuickTake 100 – 1994
Now some of these I would hardly call failures – particularly Microsoft 1 and 8 or Apple 3. Perhaps they were or are not as commercially successful as hoped or hyped, but they were definitely solid products. Maybe a bit ahead of their time with respect to the market. Others, like Microsoft 3 were just plain vaporware. Still others like Microsoft 10 and Apple 1 were really the first generation of something that ultimately was quite successful. Microsoft 5 (later IBM OS/2) was really a killer system. Unfortunately, Microsoft lost interest and IBM had no idea how to market it. Which is not to imply that IBM has ever had any idea how to market consumer products.
Some days you get the bear. Some days the bear gets you.
actually – i would say that hypercard was a huge success. Yes it was superseded by the web. But you’d hardly claim that a horse and cart was a ‘fail’ because we now use cars. In it’s day, when it was available, it was NOT a fail!
likewise I agree with your disagree over .Net
The amount of .net code out there is HUGE.
OS/2 was a IBM project. Microsoft had a hand in it in the early days but moved on due to disagreements. As for it failing…… I’d disagree. It didn’t fail, IBM did. They failed to market it and move it to the next level.