Most people have come across their share of mediocre products. The things that make a product unsatisfactory are usually common reasons like lack of functionality, poor support, bad design, and outright market failure. But, among the growing amount of commodities that have failed, the amount of innovative features that get borrowed from these goods grows as well.

While I could certainly include every technological improvement that departed from unsuccessful products, this list merely attempts to bring forth some of the more major ones. Any product that is excluded from the list, or for that matter, should not be on the list in the first place, can and should be discussed below in the comments section.

The Ford Edsel (1958)

Why it failed: The actual cause of this product’s failure is rather unclear, as no one has completely agreed why the Edsel failed. As Wikipedia puts it:

There is no single reason why the Edsel failed, and failed so spectacularly. Popular culture often faults the car’s styling. Consumer Reports cited poor workmanship. Marketing experts hold the Edsel up as a supreme example of Corporate America’s failure to understand the nature of the American consumer. Business analysts cite the weak internal support for the product inside Ford’s Executive offices. According to author and Edsel scholar Jan Deutsch, the Edsel was “the wrong car at the wrong time.”

Modern products that it inspired: Among a large amount of innovations and exclusive features, the Edsel was the first manufactured automobile to utilize self-adjusting brakes and the ability to lock the transmission in park while the ignition was disengaged. Both of these features are still commonly used today.

The Sega Dreamcast (1999)/ The Bandai Pippin @World (1996)

Why they failed: It’s hard to choose a reason why the Dreamcast failed. Many point their fingers directly at Sega, who withdrew their support of the Dreamcast prematurely. In all actuality, the Dreamcast didn’t fail. We failed the Dreamcast.

On the other hand, the Bandai Pippin @World, which was actually an Apple product, may have simply failed due to its ridiculous name. Inside the @World was a 14.4kbps modem and a 66MHz PowerPC processor, which made the device a beast online and offline. That is, of course, if the beast was an anorexic elephant with broken kneecaps and a lazy eye. Along with the miserable performance came the satisfaction of paying $600 for a game console based on the Mac OS, which meant that what games were available demanded far too much power for the little Pippin to handle.

Modern products that they inspired: The Dreamcast and the Pippin @World were the first game consoles to include internet browsers. As shown by the consumer satisfaction that the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3 internet browsers have created, it’s clear that many gamers still enjoy this feature today.

And, while the Dreamcast was definitely not the first console to allow players to compete online, it was the first console with a widespread network (SegaNet) and a large selection of online-capable games. This concept is obviously in full effect today, as the Xbox360 and PS3 both have online-networks and huge libraries full of online ready games.

Microsoft Bob (1995)

Why it failed: Although it was created to improve Windows usage for beginners and simplify the interface, Bob just hindered most computer users. The painfully slow and unnecessary tool is easily one of the worst things that came out of Microsoft. Here is a video that will help you understand what Bob did:

Modern products that it inspired: The mostly useless Bob interface did bring forth some great ideas that did help novice Windows users. As shown in the video above, Microsoft kept the informative little characters that were used as guides in Bob, most notably Clippy- that little paper clip that won’t leave MS Word users alone. Along with Clippy came Rover, who is now the little pup that pops up when XP users hit CTRL+F and activate the search function.

On a side note, according to the Wikipedia entry for Bob, the project was at one point managed by Melinda French, Bill Gates’ girlfriend at the time. The two have since become husband and wife.

Eyetop DVD Pack (2004)

Why it failed: At a MSRP of $600 when it first came out on the market, the Eyetop was no mass-market media toy. The video quality was adequate, and the tiny screen was placed in the corner of the glasses, which allowed video junkies to multi-task with their eyes. The included earbuds and DVD player were a plus, but the overall quality of the device was low.

Similar to the spectacular Nintendo Virtual Boy, the Eyetop caused eye strain after prolonged use, and even forced people to pause their movies due to extreme discomfort.

Modern products that it inspired: While video displays embedded inside glasses, helmets, hats, or other daily accessories are by no means an original invention, Eyetop was one of the first products to get closer to the personal display that is seen in the novel Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash:

The goggles throw a light, smoky haze across his eyes and reflect a distorted wide-angle view of a brilliantly lit boulevard that stretches off into an infinite blackness. The boulevard does not really exist; it is a computer-rendered view of an imaginary place.

Beneath this image, it is possible to see Hiro’s eyes … (20)

The actual Eyetop brand is still being sold on a helicopter hobbyist site although the company’s web site (Eyetop.net) is dead. Newly released products like the myvu for the iPod greatly improve on the basic formula that the Eyetop developed, but the technology is still quite primitive when compared to Stephenson’s Metaverse-displaying uber-glasses.

NeXTcube (1988)

Why it failed: When Steve Jobs resigned from Apple Computer, he founded the computer company NeXT, which was created specifically for colleges and businesses alike. Upon the release of the NeXTcube, which featured the unix-based NeXTSTEP operating system and an extremely high-end selection of hardware inside, most people believed that Jobs had developed the company that would overtake Apple.

Instead, the NeXTcube failed miserably, mainly due to the outrageous price of $6500 and the lack of quality software. To put it bluntly:

In 1988, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates commented on the NeXTcube: “He [Steve Jobs] put a microprocessor in a box. So what?”. He was later asked if he intended to develop for the NeXT platform, replying “Develop for it? I’ll piss on it.”

In February 1989, Sun Microsystems’ Scott McNealy was asked what he thought of the NeXTcube, replying, “it’s the wrong operating system, the wrong processor, and the wrong price.

[Via Wikipedia]

Modern products that it inspired: The NeXTcube, although a failure in the computer market, did obtain some notoriety since it helped spark the advent of object-oriented programming and user interfaces. Among many users, a programmer from England named Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXTcube when he created the world’s very first web server and browser in 1991. Another famous user of the platform was John Carmack, who used a NeXTcube to build Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, the very first well-made First-Person Shooters.

Besides being used as a tool for revolutionists, when the NeXT company was bought by Apple for $400 million in 1996, many of the main ideas and principles, such as processor independent capabilities, from the NeXTSTEP OS were applied to Mac OSX. Features such as the services menu and the dock as well as NSText were also taken from NeXTSTEP.

Windows ME (2000)

Why it failed: This operating system had very little to set it apart from Windows 98, as well as some things that were far worse and inferior to the older version. It was fairly unstable when it arrived on the market side by side with the more superior Windows 2000, which garnered large amounts of positive attention. The later release of Windows XP in 2001 quickly emancipated Windows users of the wretched OS forever.

Modern products that it inspired: Due to the horrid usability of Windows ME, Microsoft began to implement a great idea- users like to have operating systems that are stable. As a result, since the release of Window XP, anti-Microsoft techies have slowly begun to lose the argument that Windows is a highly unstable OS.

1. DickMcVengeance says:
   March 3rd, 2007 at 8:33 am

   Wow, I actually remember using Bob when I was a little kid.