The biggest busts from the world's most renowned gadget show
CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, is the stage that saw the debut of new technologies like the DVD and HDTV. But it’s also often the Island of Misfit Toys.
Companies that put too much faith in marketing research, a CEO’s vision or assurances from stressed-out engineers and developers, use the Las Vegas spotlight to introduce products that should have stayed in the lab. Some meet meet their fate in the consumer marketplace; some don’t even get that far.
But on reflection, these misbegotten gadgets at the Consumer Technology Association’s annual convention also have some lessons for the electronics industry, and for the customers who keep it in business.
Microsoft-keynote debuts
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivers his keynote speech before the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivers his keynote speech before the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
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The company that for years was the biggest name in computing had a lock on CES’s biggest stage: its opening-night keynote. But for many Microsoft (MSFT) concepts, that was not an auspicious launchpad.
In 1998, Microsoft launched its Auto PC platform but then failed to get any US-market vehicles rolling off assembly lines with Windows CE computers in their dashboards. In 2002, its Smart Displays — touchscreen devices you’d use to access your PC’s apps from around the home — proved to be an expensive, sluggish mess. And in 2003, clunky “SPOT” semi-smart watches that plucked updates off broadcasts on FM frequencies drew few takers, leading the company to wind down the project in 2008.
Microsoft’s 2010 keynote may have been the worst of all: It was delayed by a series of electrical problems, and the “Slate” touchscreen Windows 7 computers featured in this presentation never shipped and went unmentioned at the 2011 keynote.
The lesson of this at a time when we do wear computers on our wrists, carry tablets around the house and rely on apps for navigation and entertainment behind the wheel: Having the right ambitions and the right corporate backing won’t help if you’re years ahead of what technology allows.
3D TV
A still from the movie “Avatar.”
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At CES 2010, the problem wasn’t that a single tech company took a misguided leap into the future. Almost the entire TV industry lined up behind 3D TV in the sure hope that people who had flocked to movie theaters to watch “Avatar” in 3D would pay extra to bring that experience home.
Set vendors treated CES attendees to clips from that sci-fi blockbuster as well as a variety of other highlight reels, but nobody brought more starpower to the 3D project than Sony (SNE) — it had Taylor Swift play a brief set at its press conference, which we could watch live in 3D on a screen behind the stage.
But the whole 3D idea was not so … swift. Sorry. The steep cost of the sets, the need to buy separate battery-powered glasses for every viewer, and a lack of 3D fare on cable and satellite doomed the venture. It’s not the first time the electronics industry has made the mistake of trying to take a videophile technology mainstream. And to be fair, often it succeeds, though mostly because the tech in question gets cheap enough to become a standard feature.
Come to think of it, that’s probably explains why my Blu-ray player can play 3D movies.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/ces-tech-busts-154913792.html