98 Tech-Flops>
The biggest high-tech flops of '98
The Journal Record
SAN FRANCISCO (NYT) -- All this new
computer technology sure is wonderful. When it
works. The more new technology promises to
deliver, however, the more it falls on its face.
Hence this list of the year's biggest high-tech
flops.
Television, we were told, would deliver sharper
pictures than ever. The Internet would get faster
for average home users. One Internet service
provider promised lifetime hookups for one $60
fee. Other Web hucksters touted everything from virgin sex to live births,
Webcast to your home. Smart cards would eliminate cash. Macy's Web site
automatically would replenish women's depleted supplies of stockings. Push
technology would bring the television model to new media, delivering
information we want directly to our desktops.
None of these things materialized, at least not on the grand scale that was
promised. Sometimes, it was the technology that failed. But sometimes, it
was a more familiar story of human frailty.
People couldn't agree on standards for high-definition television. Companies
feuded over moving data at high speeds over home phone lines. The Web's
budding P.T. Barnums proved to be working in the same tradition of another
fin de siecle era's snake-oil salesmen.
But for all the failures, one must maintain optimism. In the months leading up
to January 2000, technology will be better than ever. Right?
Picks as the year's biggest flops:
The spoils. [ Microsoft ] sliced and diced archrival Netscape like a holiday
ham, leaving [ America Online ] with the leftovers. When all was said and
done, the company that brought the Internet to the masses was swept aside
by the growth of the Net -- and an Internet pioneer had become the West
Coast operations of an online pariah.
Pager crash. Paging customers got a rude awakening when Galaxy IV, a
PanAmSat satellite, spun out of orbit, leaving millions of people with useless
pieces of plastic attached to their hips. The outage, which brought
satellite-based communications such as radio feeds and ATM transactions
to a halt, was a rude reminder of our reliance on technology.
No-see TV. High-definition television, hailed as the greatest innovation since
color TV, made its debut in November. For all the hype, however, few
viewers noticed a difference. The networks broadcast few programs in high
definition, television stations didn't get all the expensive transmission
equipment in place, other players in the computer and cable industries had
trouble agreeing on standards, and consumers were unwilling to plunk down
$8,000 or more for a device that would show only a handful of programs.
Was it a full-fledged flop? Not yet, but check back in 2006, when the
federal government expects all programming to be converted to high
definition.
Tired Wired. Formerly high-flying Wired Ventures hit tough financial times.
Its flagship magazine, which had been the trail- blazing voice of the digital
age, was sold to New York publisher S.I. Newhouse, and its digital division
was pawned off to Internet search engine Lycos of Boston. Guess that rules
out the much-discussed initial public offering.
Promises, promises. AtBigger.net confirmed the axiom that bigger isn't
necessarily better. The Internet service provider promised lifetime online
access for just $60, before bailing because of money troubles.
Virtual unreality. The virtual virgins never consummated their relationship on
the Web. That's because the producer of the "Our First Time.com"
cyberevent -- the notorious [ Internet Entertainment Group ] that gave the
world the Pamela and Tommy Lee sex video and Dr. Laura's naked pictures
-- discovered that it was a hoax and outed the finely sculpted
twentysomething models, who were posing as love- struck teen-agers.
Mom con. The live birth on the Internet revealed not only one of nature's
miracles, but a fugitive from the law. The beaming mom, Elizabeth Oliver,
was arrested for passing bad checks. An Orlando, Fla., judge eventually
threw out the charges because the legal time limit for prosecuting her had
expired.
Stripped chip. Giant chipmaker [ Intel ] 's first stab at the market for
sub-$1,000 PCs turned out to be a clunker. Dubbed "Celeron" to
emphasize its speed, the new chip was just a stripped-down Pentium II.
Lacking onboard memory, it performed slower than comparable chips from
Cyrix and AMD. Several months after its April debut, Intel added the
much-needed memory to make Celeron respectable.
Not so smart. Smart cards, promoted as "the future of money," turned out
not to be after four financial powerhouses pulled the plug on their
largest-ever test of electronic cash. The chip-embedded cards were
supposed to be easier than cash, but consumers preferred ATM cards,
credit cards or simply paying the old-fashioned way.
No pushing. Push technology never quite came to shove in the ravenous
Internet world, prompting push poster children PointCast and Marimba to
scramble and come up with new identities. Their status so far: identity crises.
Satellite smash-up. Globalstar employees cheered on Sept. 9 when a
webcaster announced a "gorgeous, gorgeous launch" of a dozen satellites on
a single rocket from a cosmodrome in Kazakstan. But around midnight, the
company learned the sad truth: The Russians were reading from a script and
the rocket actually had crashed in the Siberian tundra. It was only a
temporary setback for Globalstar, a San Jose company, but it revealed the
tenuous nature of getting satellite telephone service off the ground.
Footwear software. Macys.com thought it had hit on a great idea when it set
up a Web-based automatic hosiery-replenishment service. The plan: instant
refills on such items as stockings and moisturizer that people buy (and run
out of) on a regular basis. But consumers, who still were new to e-tailing,
weren't buying, and Macy's discontinued the service this year. The retailer
has plans to relaunch it, betting that Macys.com -- with many new products
-- will be more appealing and that consumers have become more
Web-savvy.
Quirky Quark. [ Quark ] 's unsolicited bid to buy larger rival [ Adobe
Systems ] in August had the makings of a battle royal between the two
publishing software leaders but ended up as much ado about nothing as
Adobe rather easily rebuffed the unspecified offer.
Not only that, Adobe has rebounded from a weak third quarter that brought
layoffs and a major management restructuring. Adobe's stock price has
climbed from a yearly low of $23.63 on Sept. 9 to the upper $40s, close to
the 52-week high. Now Adobe is on track to go after Quark's core
high-end graphics market with a software product some analysts are
dubbing "the Quark killer."
(Copyright 1999) |
