Comments on: Ten Tech Companies That Blew It in the Past Two Decades

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 06:15:01 +0000

The Latest would be Microsoft betting on the “vista” platform. With a release having poor driver support difficulties running various software. Seems like one to me.

Only time will tell if this is or isn’t in this top ten blunders list next time around.

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:38:38 +0000

Tommy: I’ve got an excuse, in that my Treo was a hand-me-down from my wife.

By: tommyspoon

tommyspoon — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:00:56 +0000

Dave, you shoulda gone with the 700P. Mine works like a champ, integerates seamlessly with Outlook, and hasn’t crashed yet. And the phone and broadband data access rock out. I think it’s the Windows in the 700W that’s giving you all the headaches.

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:25:42 +0000

David: I, too, have gone from PDA to PDA — back and forth from Palm to Windows — with little satisfaction. Right now, I’m on a Treo 700w, the Palm/Windows hybrid. This thing might possibly have the least intuitive user interface ever devised, and its reliability ain’t much better.

By: David Moisan

David Moisan — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 05:38:07 +0000

I’m disillusioned with Palm. I bought one of their Tungstens a few years ago. I loved it. Though it was obvious that PalmOS was at the same level as Windows 3.1, the device worked for me compared against the horror stories that were ActiveStink, er, ActiveSync.

Four years later, I’m still running the same software I got with it. I don’t expect to ever get Outlook integrated let alone Office 2007. DataViz is doing a wonderful job keeping up but I wonder just how much longer they can make money on the Palm platform.

I’ve noted most of the little developers have really bailed out of the platform. There was a wonderful HTML offline web page and book reader for the Palm called Plucker. It’s now dead for all intents and purposes.

PalmSource, er., Garnet, was supposed to port the OS to Linux. The only thing I and others have gotten from that were the stuffed Tuxes at LinuxWorld. All that development for just a plushie!

And now Treo is wagging the dog. Can I be the only PDA user who doesn’t want an integrated phone and PDA with all the integration issues and costs? Say, my PDA doesn’t sync up in the morning before I catch a train and I get to deal with MS, Palm and the carrier-of-the-week to get things working.

It’s a shame. Even though I love my Tungsten it doesn’t make any sense anymore to get a new one, or a new anything from Palm or Treo, when it (soon) dies.

Take care,
Dave

By: J

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:55:56 +0000

Ibm is, yet again, sitting on top of revolutionary technology…

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:29:58 +0000

No problem nitpicking at all, Kyle. That would indeed be a welcome change. My last phone — a Treo 600 running Palm software — still couldn’t do it, which was a major pain.

By: Kyle Jelle

Kyle Jelle — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:54:21 +0000

“like oh, say, enabling a contact to have both a home and business address, which the Palm still can’t do”

I hate to nitpick—and I don’t want to detract from your larger point, which I agree with—but this is incorrect; the Palm T|X does allow contacts to have multiple addresses.

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:23:11 +0000

Sure, we could include IBM. Keep in mind that this is by no means a complete list of tech companies that have blown it, just a list.

By: Harry Connolly

Harry Connolly — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:26:03 +0000

My first computer was a Gateway. I still use the 13″ CRT monitor, and the only reason I put the computer itself on a back shelf was that I couldn’t find a printer that would work with it any more.

Poor Gateway.

Should IBM be on that list somewhere? I know the company is still going, but I thought it took a big fall at some point by not jumping into the PC market.