According to the old saying, you learn more from a failure than a success. Well, if that’s the case, the consumer electronics industry ought to have a master’s degree by now. There was the ­ROKR E1 from Apple and Motorola, the first iTunes phone that, idiotically, held a maximum of 100 songs. There was Google Wave, a piece of Web software more baffling and complex than the 1040 tax form. There was the KIN smartphone, which Microsoft spent several years and around $1 billion to develop, only to withdraw it from the market after only two months.

(Not to harp on Microsoft, but let’s not forget its SPOT wireless watch, Smart Display wireless screen or Zune wireless music player. In fact, besides the ­Xbox and PC peripherals, has Microsoft ever successfully launched a new piece of hardware?)

When a Hollywood studio sees that a finished movie is awful, it saves itself millions of dollars in marketing and distribution costs by burying it in a closet somewhere. Why doesn’t the tech industry follow suit? Could it be that these companies don’t realize that their products will tank?

That seems hard to believe. Almost anyone can identify these turkeys, sometimes just by hearing about them. (“Wait, Microsoft is selling a watch that requires a $10 monthly subscription, has to be recharged every other day and doesn’t fully work outside your own area code? You’re kidding, right?”)

Smart companies should inspect the smoking wreckage of their predecessors’ marketplace disasters and learn the factors at work. For example:

The Upgrade Paradox. Both the hardware and software industries have adopted a business model in which a new version, with more features, is introduced each year. At the outset, this cycle works for everyone. We, the people, cheerfully upgrade every year just to stay current. The tech company captures repeat business. Ultimately, though, simply piling on new features impairs the product rather than enhancing it. As Apple’s Steve Jobs has said, the real art is knowing what to leave out, not what to put in.

Good Design Isn’t Easy. Our gadgets are under warring design constraints. We want our electronics tiny and pocketable, but we want big screens and keyboards. We want our devices rugged but also inexpensive. We want them powerful but with a long battery life, packed with features and easy to use. Finding a design that strikes just the right balance in all these areas is darned hard.

Pressure to Ship. Far more products fall behind schedule than surge ahead of it. Meanwhile the money people want to see a return on their investment. Eventually the pressure to ship the new product becomes intense—especially at the holiday season—even if everyone knows it’s not quite finished. That’s what happened to the disastrous BlackBerry Storm, the first touch-screen BlackBerry, whose original version was so buggy and half-baked that it became the laughingstock of the Web.

Fix It Later Syndrome. Tech companies seem to think it’s okay to ship a poorly developed product (especially software or a Web site), filled with bugs and bad design, and then fix it later. “It’s only software,” they say. “Let the first customers be our guinea pigs.”

Which is fine—unless your product is so bad, it doesn’t even make it to version 2. Beware the fate of Remo Williams: The ­Adventure Begins, a movie so bad, the adventure never even continued.

The Broadway Flop Effect. I spent 10 years working as a conductor and arranger of Broadway musicals, many of which were flops. (I hope that wasn’t because I worked on them.) Everyone in the cast and crew was perfectly aware that we were working on a flop. But nobody ever spoke up. We all just showed up for work and did as we were told. Why? Because it was a paycheck. We would be idiots to suggest to the management that the emperor had no clothes.

Even if a tech project team knows that its product is a dog, there’s no incentive for the rank and file to speak up—and plenty of incentive to keep heads down and see it through to its disappointing end.

So, yes, there are all kinds of factors that contribute to consumer tech turkeys. What is fascinating is how rarely the problem is the nature of the technology itself. Far more often the real problem is simple human nature. 

This article was originally published with the title Why Gadgets Flop.

7 Comments

1. 1. grovewest 09:19 AM 6/21/11

   Thanks so true. I had software sent to me for release from an Indian firm that didn't work at all. The deadline for the release came, so since no one is watching, they skipped the testing phase and sent the code off for implementation. It was so badly designed and coded that it couldn't be tested and had to be rewritten. QA and 'project management' is more like 'smoke and mirrors' in most places, everyone knows it but no one admits it.

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2. 2. bjnicholls 10:48 AM 6/21/11

   So if you discard Microsoft's two extremely successful hardware categories, what's the point to that question?
   
   Many well-designed products fail in the market too. Marketing, and market timing are critical, and widespread market acceptance of another technology can thwart even the best efforts. Witness the current 7.4% market share of Apple's OSX computers despite all the great design behind the platform and hardware. And I recall my personal experience with the lame, overpriced Apple cloud experience, MobileMe.

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3. 3. David N'Gog 11:00 AM 6/21/11

   It has little to do with "is the product good" and more to do with "can you convince people they need it".
   
   Take apple- they are excellent at convincing people they "need" something they never had before.
   
   iPod - old technology when it came out- but previous MP3 players didn't sell because consumers didn't know they "needed" it.
   
   iPad - the idea behind tablets had been around a long time but Apple convinced people having a computer that can't do as much as other computers but was in a tablet shape was somehow "needed".
   
   Truth be told, netbooks are far better value than tablets- but people feel the need for tablets these days.
   
   Gadgets work when the consumer thinks they need them. That said, it is easier to convince people they need a well designed product than a poorly designed one.

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4. 4. jconti 11:53 PM 6/21/11

   In my experience as a firmware engineer, you've got the order of causes backwards. Otherwise it is dead on. Another minor nit, Microsoft did successfully launch its mouse, and then later added USB, and then later an LED. Flawless ;-)
   
   Do you think Microsoft has a museum of failure somewhere in Redmond? You know, with Windows 1.0, Barney, etc in it?
   
   Anyway I rely on your taste in gadgets as I can no longer trust my engineering self to make these decisions. The nerd in me steers me wrong so often!
   
   Best,
   John

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5. 5. mdayalsaran 01:16 AM 6/22/11

   This is so very true...In most product review meetings, the major issues are never highlighted to a level where the top management feels convinced that the product will fail in the market.
   This is because the project blunders into Abilene paradox...wherein the management gives a go-ahead for the launch of the product in the market even when the general opinion is contrary to the management's decision.
   

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6. 6. TeresaBinstock 11:54 AM 9/18/11

   Mozilla Thunderbird is an example of a program which reached peak efficiency several versions ago. Too many of Thunderbird's recent changes interfere with functionality.

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7. 7. Megatester1 11:26 AM 9/20/11

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