Microsoft's Forgotten Mistakes

seattlenerd writes "In light of all of the hype about how much cash Microsoft is sitting on, it's good to be reminded that they do fail. A lot. This piece in Seattle Weekly points out some of the many failures -- from ActiMates Barney to Microsoft at Work to pending disasters in smartphones and interactive TV (despite recent PR-worthy announcements). But like most litter, the failures are swept under the rug in the hopes people don't remember that many 'new' Microsoft ideas are recycled from its own history." Of course, like any big company, Microsoft is not a monolith.

Comments

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

all companies have alot of failures!

Hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Enter anti "M$" comment here.

Mod me up as insightful!

goatse

[Anonymous Coward]

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I am so fucking drunk

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so fucking drunk and I am supposed to go to work tomorrow and face a performance analysis.

Fuck this shit!

That's michael for you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything even remotely smacking of anti-MS bigotry gets a real opportunity to get front-page space here. Especially with certain "editors"...

Stop sitting around being bitter, shaking your head and snickering derisively over every MS press release. Emulate what they're doing right, improve upon it, and look at where the wreckage is to avoid their mistakes. Build a better mousetrap, stop whining about the mousetrap you keep seeing on the shelves. You know why it's on so many shelves? Because for Most of Us, it works. Put down your $6 chai drink, do it better and stop bitching.

Perhaps Microsoft's Most Infamous Project

[Anonymous Coward]

the Microsoft Tubgirl Active Household. It was a artificial intelligence agent like MS Bob but for women. Its really funny.

You're missing the point

[burgburgburg]

a) We hate them because they're EVIL.
b) We like articles like this because it shows that along with being EVIL, Microsoft is NOT INNOVATIVE
c) Tobacco companies/executives give lots of money to charities too. It doesn't make them any less EVIL.
d) Pointing out Microsoft's failures is a good thing. Did I mention they're EVIL?

Re:Abe Lincoln: failed at being President too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you you slave owner wannabe.

Fuckin' Slashdot....

[Anonymous Coward]

...is getting even more ridiculous. I'm no hard core MS fan, but Slashdot is just becoming unbearable with these anti-microsoft rants every other day.

Failures? How about Linux as a desktop? One big freakin' flop. KDE, Gnome? What a joke. Linux it self? A zillion distros, many incompatible.

You want to talk innovation? How about taking a 30 year old OS and just copying it and making it free. Wooo. That's some real hardcore innovation, pass the Krystal.

IBM, Sun, Oracle and the rest of the companies have lined up behind Linux because they couldn't make a decent OS if they tried, and they did. Their other ideas were bigtime failures as well: Network computing, Database Appliances, N1? Gimme a break.

As for IBM: Lotus, shitty Rational tools, OS/2, DB2... practically any software IBM has ever made or purchased has been a total disaster, including everything their latest and greatest versions like DB2, WAS, etc. are still crap.

But IBM has a brilliant business model though, ship shit and send in an 180,000 strong global services division billing like whores to solve the problems. They make $5 on consulting for each software dollar sold. They'll ramp that up once they outsource the rest of the shit to India.

IBM is smart, most slashdotters are stupid because many work on free software and who's making the money off it? Let's just say that Linux ain't paying too many people's rent.

What's even funnier is that many of you moonlight at your microsoft supported jobs so you can develop even more free linux crap at night. Dumb and dumberer...hehe.

It's controversial, antagonizing, and draws hits

[Overly Critical Guy]

See subject.