We have seen some of the most technologically advanced products in the last 10 years and some of them are a part of our daily life, they have penetrated so much into our lives thats we have started depending on then as a part of our basic need.

Companies behind these famous products have also done tremendous blunders in the past decade by launching products that were either defective or have insignificant features and consumers have totally rejected them which resulted in the colossal damage to the credibility and market share of those companies.

Today we have compiled a list of those products that happened to be huge fail and most of these products are from the Gurus of their department, our list begins with..

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft launched windows Vista on January 30, 2007 mainly in order to improve security issues threatening PC user but happened to be a huge fail because of the following main reasons..

• Vista was not compatible with most of the older PCs ultimately limiting the number of users to upgrade their Operating system from an earlier version of Windows at that time, Knows as XP
• Vista boots too slowly than its predecessor operating systems.
• Vista failed to support older software applications.

Gateway

Gateway was the most successful PC company during the early 1990s. It was founded in 1985 and become the top PC company of that time and in a short period of 5 years its sales quadrupled, by 2004 Gateway was at number 3 in US market share after HP and DELL. But in 2007 Gateway became so helpless and that Acer bought it for $710 million.

Some of the main reasons behind Gateway’s failure were

• Gateway didn’t entered into the Laptop business.
• Gateway didn’t  shifted to portable computers when their competitors were manufacturing those computers in bulk.
• Gateway hadn’t entered into business with popular enterprises like other PC manufacturing companies.
• Gateway instead of concentrating into one major product, entered into consumer electronics business which proved to be a huge fail.

HD DVD

HD DVD was first launched as a consumer product in 2006 but the debate of having it as the only format to play in High definition was started in 2002 and Toshiba and NEC were the first ones to fund and market the new technology.

As a competitor of Blu-ray format,  HD DVD launch was not that successful and Toshiba lost almost $1 Billion when it finally abandoned it in 2008. HD DVD format failed because of the following main reasons..

• The first and the main reason of the failure of HD DVD was poor marketing as compared to Sony who supported Blu-ray and convinced major film studios to release their films in Blu-ray instead of HD DVD.
• Second most important reason Toshiba claimed was that Digital Download business gave a major setback to the sales of HD DVDs.

Sirius XM

Sirius XM,  satellite radio happened to be the most popular consumer electronics devices of all time. Once you have subscribed you can listen to more than 100 stations coast-to-coast while traveling or relaxing in your backyard.

Sirius merged with its rival XM on February 17, 2007 only because of high operational cost and debts. Subscribers began to leave the company as more innovative products like iPod multimedia cellular handsets have launched which gave more freedom to the consumers. So in the first quarter of 2009, the total number of subscribers decreased by 400,000 from the previous quarter to 18.6 million.

Microsoft Zune

Microsoft launched Zune in 2006 and they thought it will rival Apple’s iPod which had been in market since 2001 but Microsoft’s attempt to divert consumers mind failed tremendously. After 2 years of its launch in 2008, Microsoft claimed that they have sold 2 million units that made a total of  $270 million in terms of revenue which was quite low as compare to Apple’s iPod who made $3.37 Billion during the last quarter of 2008 only.

Zune failed mainly because Microsoft lacked hardware expertise as any other good company in the world and also because of poor marketing which Zune as a completely new product deserved.

YouTube

I don’t think YouTube needs any introduction as it is the most visited video sharing site in the world. Millions of people around the world watch Billions of videos every month and after Google, YouTube’s search engine is at the second place to be used for searching videos.

Most of the people wont believe it but in fact YouTube is a huge fail as Google bought it for $1.65 Billion but due tremendous  operational cost it is a chance that Google will never get a return for its investment.

Palm

Palm, as we all know are the pioneers of the smartphone market during 2005-6 but in 2007 Palm market share began to fall primarily because Palm failed to come up with the demands of modern world and ultimately competitors like Blackberry, Apple and Nokia captured the whole market.

Iridium

The Global Satellite Phone service provider, Iridium faced bankruptcy in 1999 when it spent $5 Billion to build the whole infrastructure to provide worldwide wireless phone service. Iridium despite of  investing such an enormous amount  failed because of the following main reasons..

• Iridium’s first handset faced critical technical issues  giving a major setback to the company.
• The handset and calling rates were  so much hight that very few people could be able afford it.
• The technology was difficult to use which made it unpopular.
• Cellular services were not broadly available but they were far more cheaper than the Satellite phone service.
• Operational cost was much higher.

Segway Scooter

It was thought that Segway the two-wheel personal transportation service will revolutionize the world when it was launched in 2002 but unfortunately the product whose development cost was about $100 million failed because..

• Segway as a product was too pricey about $3,000 for most models.
• As a road vehicle it requires licencing in some countries.
• Some countries banned Segway to be used as a road vehicle.

Via Time