Every year a few things that happen in the world of technology
leave us scratching our heads...like why Apple redesigned Final
Cut for 4 year olds...Why Quicken no longer works on the
Mac...or why a Roku box has a jeans tab...But those are trivial
compared this list: The Top 5 Tech Turkeys of 2011: Blunders
that someone just had to get fired over.
#5 - The Flip camera.
Cisco paid $590 million dollars in 2009 to
take over the iconic Flip and then in April 2011, killed it.
Didn�t
scale it back, license the tech, or even sell it at a loss.
They shut
it down.
Yes, smartphones are bearing down hard on these
devices but Flip was the dominant brand in a decent category
that didn�t require ton of R&D.
Who knows how much money
was left on the table.
#4 - WebOS and HP PC�s.
We started checking the dumpsters
outside HP for empty booze bottles when they announced in
August they were suddenly killing off the WebOS mobile platform
and devices AND sellng or spinning off their PC division.
A bolt
out of the blue, it made HP look like it never did get mobile and
gave a good case of the willies to is PC clients and partners.
That cost the CEO his gig and HP a lot of its cred as a Silicon
Valley leader.
#3 - Sony PSN breach.
In a year of unprecedented hacks and
attacks, the Sony PSN breach was perhaps the ugliest.
In early
April the PlayStation Network was brought to its knees and the
customer records of some 100M users were pinched, largely
unencrypted.
All in, PSN and Qriocity were down for some 3
WEEKS!
Blackberry gets hell when their network goes down for
the days.
Oh, and that happened this year, also.) Sony made
amends by tossing users some free games and stuff, which is
sort of like the house buying you breakfast when you just lost
your car at the baccarat table.
#2 - RIM.
The BlackBerry maker didn�t have any one product or
moment it�s fate turned on and maybe that�s the problem.
Just a
whole let of meh.
2011 in general was the year that �what�s up
with BlackBerry� became the question on everyone�s lips.
Apple
retained the title for most popular smartphone...Android took
over as most popular platform...Windows Phone as most
promising ...and RIM got kudos for having great keyboard.
Not
much to work with there.
#1 - Netflix/Qwikster.
When you hear people say your company�s
strategy will be studied in business school for years to come its
either real good...or real bad.
For Netflix, it was the latter.
In July
, the company raised the cost of a DVD + streaming from 10
bucks to 16 overnight.
The backlash was big; subscriber
cancellations sent the once-darling of home video in the wrong
direction.
Then they �fixed� it by announcing a Qwikster, a new
company to handle DVD rental separately from streaming,
because nothing takes a users mind off a 60% price hike like a
100% increase in hassles.
Well, they reversed that Qwikster idea
a few days later, but the price hike stayed and the worst part of
this story is that Netflix is still a great service at a great price, but
now with a banged-up brand.
All they had to do was handle it
right.
I guess they didn�t want to give up this coveted #1 slot to
RIM.
For more top 5s like this one got to top5.cnet.com.
I am Brian
Cooley, thanks for watching.
