Missing the mark
n an industry where fresh fads lose their flair faster than a pair of pants, computing "pans" abound. InfoWorld has done its fair share of giving the thumbs down to products and solutions tested throughout the years, using a variety of scoring methodologies: from a literal "thumbs down" to a "cold thermometer" score. But rather than rehash all the technology solutions that didn't make our grade, we're looking back at major missteps of the past 20 years -- many of which started out with hot technologies that quickly lost their steam. We've narrowed down our pans to products and concepts that fell flat on their faces, those that reflected a vendor's attempt to manipulate the market, and those that were just plain bad ideas.
- -- InfoWorld editors
Flops and follies: broken promises
ON THE DESKTOP. Not surprisingly, efforts to build something new for something old almost always fail to please. IBM is well-known for taking wrong turns: Both its 1985 TopView DOS multitasker and DisplayWrite host-access solution failed to innovate. IBM promised to turn TopView into a user-friendly GUI, but never did. Also failing to live up to its buildup was Borland's dBase for Windows. But not every flop was created for PCs: think Lotus Jazz. Despite years and millions of dollars in effort, Lotus never figured out what worked on a Macintosh.We can't talk about desktop flops without a little scrutiny of Microsoft's foibles. The original Microsoft Access was a nonrelational nightmare: Drivers had to perform machinations to make data appear relational to applications using the drivers. And what about Bob? Yes, that "social interface" attempt of a few years ago, Microsoft's Bob, was not only a flop, but proof that Bill Gates really must think we don't know what we want our computers to do.
ON THE NETWORK. Although it was a top network technology for a time, ARCnet lost its luster in the wake of better breakthroughs. But diskless workstations -- after many promising claims -- never even made it off the ground. These early forms of network computers had all the limitations but none of the flexibility of today's so-called thin clients. Another promise that failed to deliver: videotext. Although in theory the videotext concept was right on target -- the Web being a contemporary consummation -- the efforts of the late 1970s and early 1980s promised a panacea, which they never delivered.
ON THE FRINGE. Although many an innovation came from Apple's orchard, the Newton is one fruit that fell too far from the tree. We would've loved the Newton if it could have lived up to at least half of the hype, but it never ripened to expectations.
The Original IBM PC AT hard drive really left users wanting more: First it failed to function properly, then IBM played a finger-pointing game with its supplier at the customers' expense, failing to provide technical support. The PC Jr. was another IBM flop: IBM didn't make the connection between "portable" and "usable."
The Compaq Keyboard, the company's attempt at innovation via creative placement of control keys, proved that there are just some things you shouldn't mess with in Texas. Another concept that has yet to come to fruition in a truly useful form is voice recognition. We concede that recent voice-recognition offerings are providing assistance to users with specific needs, but vendors have been chasing this dream since 1979, when we reviewed "Mike," a $3,500 voice-recognition system. For now, saying "file" and "close" isn't exactly what we were hoping for.
Market manipulators
The industry's market manipulators include all versions of vaporware: dribbleware, when features are released one by one; ideaware, when a vendor responds to a threat with a good idea; and "where's-it-going-ware," efforts launched not to solve user's problems but to steer the market in a different direction. Leading our list of vaporware victims is VisiCorp's VisiOn. If vaporware ever killed a product, this was it. Not only did VisiOn, a graphical user interface that rode on top of DOS, really never materialize, it took down VisiCorp and Software Arts and allowed Lotus to own the spreadsheet category for years.Hewlett-Packard's 100VG-AnyLAN was a terrific technology that, by the way, came with its own standard. Although HP eventually got back on the Ethernet bandwagon, we're not so sure about those poor network administrators that were steered off course.
The Net PC as a concept has managed to appear, disappear, and reappear without taking many prisoners. But announcing the Net PC specification just to keep customers from considering a new idea -- last year's network computer, for instance -- is practically a standard marketing procedure for Microsoft.
Although they performed on cue, Micro Channel Architecture and EISA bus designs were pans because they distracted customers, analysts, and vendors from real issues.
Bad seeds
At the bottom of the pan are ideas that were never meant to see the light of day. Such ill-fated plots as software-protection schemes caused nothing but dissent: In the early '80s, many vendors forced law-abiding users to insert a key disk before using a program that was copied on to a hard drive. The vehemently despised spam and computer virus are examples of a tainted technology that has spun out of control.The whole idea of paid support really gets our blood boiling: After all, shouldn't a product just do what it's advertised to do? Not to mention paid beta testing: Windows 95 was the largest paid beta test in history, but not the only one.
Pen computing is a great example of vendors coming up with a solution to a nonproblem: PC-savvy kids today type better than their parents ever did.
Finally, we boo the world of faux ergonomics: goofy designs in the name of ergonomics but nowhere near the aim of being user-friendly. From mice that rest on users' thighs, to keyboards that bend and twist, to pointing devices you wear as a hat? Give us a break; expend those brain cells on something we really can use, thank you.