IT Hall Of Shame, Part 2
Welcome back to our rogue's gallery of computer industry flops, frauds and foibles. In this installment, we're pleased to present ten more exhibits, from Y2K to the Pentium Bug, that prove the best laid plans of mice and men don't just go awry -- they lead straight to the IT Hall of Shame.
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Former HP CEO Mark Hurd boosted the company's presence in the enterprise software and services markets with bold acquisitions like the $13.9 billion takeover of EDS. HP also became the world's biggest PC seller under Hurd's watch. Thus was he richly rewarded -- Hurd banked $52 million in 2009. But on August 7, 2010, HP fired Hurd for filing expense reports allegedly inflated to cover up an inappropriate dalliance with marketing contractor (and former soft-core porn star) Jodie Fisher. The biggest mystery of all? With all that scratch, why didn't Hurd just use an ATM to pay for the pricey dinners and hotel rooms?
Take a stroll though to our expanded rogue's gallery of tech industry flops, frauds and foibles. In this installment, we are (with apologies to Rod Serling) pleased to present for your consideration ten more exhibits, from golden "oldies" like the Y2K scare and the Pentium Bug to more recent nominees such as the porn-addicted IBM worker and Apple's Antennagate fiasco, that prove the best laid plans of computer mice and men don't just go awry -- they often lead straight to the IT Hall of Shame. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out Part 1 for more infamous individuals, incidents and inventions from the annals of information technology history. Among our first inductees were SCO CEO Darl McBride, the Apple Newton, and Microsoft's Windows-powered wristwatch. After wandering around the exhibit hall, please let us know of any egregious omissions, and feel free to send suggestions for future editions of the IT Hall Of Shame.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
A more serious floating point bug showed up in the original version of Intel's Pentium processor. The flaw, first exposed in 1994 by InformationWeek.com's own Alex Wolfe, occurred in the chip's Floating Point Unit, and produced math errors in various types of calculations. Intel insisted the bug would affect only a tiny minority of users under very limited circumstances. But tests showed the errors could be reproduced relatively frequently when Pentium computers were used for a number of calculations commonly used in science. Intel ultimately agreed to replace the affected chips upon request, taking a $475 million charge to cover the losses.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
Airplanes falling from the sky at midnight, nuclear meltdowns, stock market collapses -- those were just some of the calamities that were supposed to befall civilization as a result of the Y2K Bug. The glitch stemmed from the fact that most computer programs before the turn of the century used only two digits to represent the year. So experts assumed that when 1999 became 2000, many of the systems that run critical infrastructure would be tricked into believing we were back in 1900 and freak out. It turned out not much happened. Whether that was due to the billions of dollars spent on systems remediation, or to Y2K being mostly hype, is still the subject of ongoing debate.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
In America the litigious, the best way to overcome a stupendous lapse in judgment is to claim you're a victim and sue. And that's precisely what James Pacenza did. Pacenza was a former IBM employee who was fired after being caught using a company computer to surf Internet porn. He turned around and sued IBM, claiming Big Blue discriminated against him because he was a "sex addict." After all, Pacenza's lawyers argued, workers with drug and alcohol programs were offered therapy instead of termination.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
You'd think they would have learned after the Y2K. Nope, the computer industry was again in a tizzy seven years later over the so-called Daylight Savings Bug. 2007 saw lawmakers roll back daylight-saving time to March 11, three weeks earlier than normal. The changeover caused IT watchers to get paranoid like it was 1999, as many again predicted our computerized civilization would come to an end as chips controlling everything from coffee pots to power grids fell victim to the change. In the end, bulletins were issued, patches were released, systems were updated, and life as we know it went on.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
IBM may be getting the last laugh on this one. Big Blue sued longtime employee Mark Papermaster last year after he bolted to head up the iPhone engineering team at Apple. But after just 15 months on the job, Papermaster left Cupertino in early August amid the Antennagate fiasco. Apple may be forced to spend $175 million to provide free cases to iPhone 4 buyers. The cases, supposedly, insulate iPhone 4's finicky antenna from the so-called "grip of death" bug.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
2007 might have been a good year to deposit $65,535 in your checking account -- if your bank was using Excel 2007 to keep its books. Red-faced Microsoft officials were forced to admit that that particular version of the spreadsheet would yield the number 100,000 when confronted with calculations that were supposed to result in, or be close to, 65,535. Microsoft blamed the flaw on a floating point error -- i.e., Excel 2007, like many high school math students, put the decimal point in the wrong place. The company issued a patch to fix the problem.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
To Be, or not to Be? The answer, unfortunately for the founders of Be Inc., was the latter. Be introduced the BeBox PC and BeOS operating system in 1995 with an eye to competing with Apple in the graphics workstation market. But just two years later, the BeBox was off the market. It turns out not too many users wanted a computer for which there were almost no native applications. Be Inc. was eventually swallowed up by Palm, although BeOS is still maintained and updated by a small group of loyal users.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
These guys took the concept of offshore outsourcing a little too literally. Entrepreneurs David Cook and Roger Green in 2005 purportedly launched an outfit called SeaCode that would offer outsourced application development services from a boat moored off the California coast. The idea was to hire Indian workers who wouldn't be subject to U.S. immigration or minimum wage laws because the ship would literally be offshore. But after an initial press release, nothing much was ever heard from SeaCode, and many dismissed the initiative as a hoax -- though a website for the project remains online.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
It's one thing for a private-sector business to outsource work to low-cost countries like India and China to save a buck. After all, companies like IBM and Microsoft are supposed to make profits and deliver juicy shareholder returns. But should the U.S. government be spending taxpayer dollars to help overseas outsourcers lure work from American shores? Based on reader feedback to our exclusive report that USAID ponied up $10 million to boost outsourcers in Sri Lanka, the answer is a resounding, "No!"
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
It's one thing for a private-sector business to outsource work to low-cost countries like India and China to save a buck. After all, companies like IBM and Microsoft are supposed to make profits and deliver juicy shareholder returns. But should the U.S. government be spending taxpayer dollars to help overseas outsourcers lure work from American shores? Based on reader feedback to our exclusive report that USAID ponied up $10 million to boost outsourcers in Sri Lanka, the answer is a resounding, "No!"
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
Former HP CEO Mark Hurd boosted the company's presence in the enterprise software and services markets with bold acquisitions like the $13.9 billion takeover of EDS. HP also became the world's biggest PC seller under Hurd's watch. Thus was he richly rewarded -- Hurd banked $52 million in 2009. But on August 7, 2010, HP fired Hurd for filing expense reports allegedly inflated to cover up an inappropriate dalliance with marketing contractor (and former soft-core porn star) Jodie Fisher. The biggest mystery of all? With all that scratch, why didn't Hurd just use an ATM to pay for the pricey dinners and hotel rooms?
Take a stroll though to our expanded rogue's gallery of tech industry flops, frauds and foibles. In this installment, we are (with apologies to Rod Serling) pleased to present for your consideration ten more exhibits, from golden "oldies" like the Y2K scare and the Pentium Bug to more recent nominees such as the porn-addicted IBM worker and Apple's Antennagate fiasco, that prove the best laid plans of computer mice and men don't just go awry -- they often lead straight to the IT Hall of Shame. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out Part 1 for more infamous individuals, incidents and inventions from the annals of information technology history. Among our first inductees were SCO CEO Darl McBride, the Apple Newton, and Microsoft's Windows-powered wristwatch. After wandering around the exhibit hall, please let us know of any egregious omissions, and feel free to send suggestions for future editions of the IT Hall Of Shame.
Further reading: IT Hall Of Shame, Part 1
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