Top Technology Fails

Top Technology Fails

We live in a digital age. iPhones, personal computers, microchips, the internet (we could go on). There’s simply no getting away from these excellent technological advancements which have, in most cases, made our lives better.

But rather than celebrate these life changing feats, we thought we’d look back at the last decade(ish) to shed some light on the forgotten, the overlooked… the flops. So, sit back, relax and enjoy.

HD DVD
HD DVD was a direct competitor to the now household name- Blu-ray. As you can probably guess, HD DVD came second in a two-horse race. Interestingly HD DVD didn’t lose due to being less technological advanced (although it did hold less data than a Blu-ray disc), it lost out due to business partnerships. When Sony convinced Warner Brothers to make Blu-ray their primary disc format it spelled the end for HD DVD. Toshiba (the primary supporter of HD DVD) estimated that the failure of HD DVD cost them a staggering $986,000,000.

Windows Vista
Where do we start with this one? Ignoring all the positives Vista brought to our fingertips, this operating system was a little bit of a disaster… to put it politely! Vista launched to a barrage of negative reviews from huge technology websites. Despite the fact it was in development for 5-6 years, Vista wasn’t compatible with all PCs on the market. It suffered from what would turn out to be licensing issues and probably most frustratingly it came with a hefty cost for users looking to upgrade to a faulty system. It’s safe to say Vista wasn’t Microsoft’s finest hour.

MiniDisc
Some of you readers may not even know what a MiniDisc is… which explains it all really. Popular in the early 90’s MiniDiscs were designed to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD). Whilst getting off to a good start, MP3 players soon rendered MiniDiscs obsolete. Leaving a wave of unhappy music lovers stuck with hardware far, far inferior to the competitors.

3D TV
Although still early enough in its product life cycle, 3D TV looks destined to be a flop. Forecasters from major tech companies across the globe were convinced this would be the next big thing in home entertainment. However, it just hasn’t turned out that way. Some major TV companies are already looking to distance themselves from the technology.

Microsoft Zune
Another entry in our list for tech giants Microsoft… Zune was a line of digital media players (think old fashioned iPods). Despite being competitively priced, reliable and meeting the needs of the users, the Zune media players were only in production for 6 years, mainly due to the inability to knock the iPod off top spot. Rather than being better and differentiating from the competitors Microsoft simply mimicked and it back fired big time.

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