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IT Clunkers We Have Known

And yes, it's true that failure in one area may well have turned into success in another venue, if that product or service became part of an offering that subsequently fared better. That's certainly the hope of the
Business Plan Archive, a project at the University of Maryland that collects documents from failed dot-com companies for future generations to learn from.

It's also said that failures are a sign of companies' willingness to innovate.

In a nutshell: Yada, yada, to quote those Seinfeld philosophers. All of this may be true, but none of it's as fun as remembering the clunkers. Let's get started, shall we?

I sure hope that HP's new videoconferencing system fares better than some others have in past years. Videoconferencing is one of those things that should do really well, given how expensive and how little fun travel's become. Back in the day when flying was a giant airborne party, with newfound friends buying drinks for each other and generally whooping it up in the smoking section in the back of the plane, employees used to really want to be the one chosen to go to a particular conference or represent the firm at a given function. But not anymore; geez, most airlines don't even hand out mystery meals in cabin-class these days, which is a shame because at the very least it gave seat-mates something to talk about. ("What do you think this is?" etc.)

Given all this, and given how most well-adjusted adults have an aversion to being frisked on the security line, you'd think videoconferencing would be the method of choice for collaboration in this techno-decade. But this technology, along with video phones, has pretty much bombed out from widespread usage. True, video systems in years past had problems with jerky pictures that made everyone around the table feel like they had a giant, joint case of morning sickness. And sure, it's got something to do with meeting people in person and shaking their hands, etc. But I think that the biggest clunker factor here has to do with not wanting to have to dress up like a TV anchor-person every time we go to work. ("Hey, Jones, got a minute? Fujiyama in Tokyo would like to have a word about that sushi project…") Excepting the people in the executive suites who are always expected to have that freshly blow-dried-hair thing going, most of the rest of us are lucky to have matched socks and clean, um, shirts on a daily basis. You know what I'm talking about.

Other less-than-widespread products of days gone by:

- Voice recognition. Sure, this has made giant inroads for the disabled, including many people who wouldn't be able to work otherwise, and for that we should all be grateful. But it's never realized the original expectation of everyone talking into their computers--and that's probably a good thing. I can't even imagine what commands an ill-fated computer might perform in the middle of a cubicle farm where it's overhearing multiple people speaking at once. Poor thing might even blow up. Maybe it will take the videoconferencing system with it.

- The all-singing, all-dancing architectures so prevalent in the 1980s and early 1990s. Remember computer-assisted software engineering (CASE)? It was supposed to solve all our software-development woes and was so complex that it wound up adding to the problem.

- Diskless PCs - in a world where we want all our 'stuff' with us at all times, to paraphrase George Carlin, is it any wonder that a tech gadget that put us on a forced diet wouldn't do so well?

- Then there are the products that, while they have a devoted following in a specific industry or two, never quite made the huge dent their manufacturers hoped: IBM's OS/2 operating system, Banyan's Vines, pretty much anything by Xerox outside of printers and copiers--all come to mind here.

- As long as we're reminiscing, here's an example of something that became useful in a way I'm sure the maker never intended. Or at least I hope not. Back in the 1980s, as a young reporter who worked for one of the major IT publications, vendors would routinely woo press coverage with nice meals and, sometimes, gifts. (We were prohibited from getting anything worth over $25, so believe me when I say I never got the Maserati of my dreams.) I once met with some people at DEC who were making a big deal out of a new networking scheme called Ethernet. Yes, this is true. As a thank-you for showing up, the nice people gave us an Ethernet transponder with two wires sticking out of it. The whole works was covered with a canvass material with the "Digital" logo on it. It kind of looked like the top half of a slightly deformed rabbit -- it had a square "head" and two large white wires sticking out on top as the ears. Came with a convenient carrying handle. So I used to take the thing onto the subway with me, start talking to it, and I always got a seat when fellow New Yorkers would clear out and give me lots of space. Well, it was a communications medium, right?

And now I'll put the question to you: which products or services do you remember only vaguely? For you young'uns, consider this a history lesson. For everyone else--thanks for the walk down memory lane!

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