The Biggest Tech Mishap of 2013?

Nerval's Lobster writes "Some high-profile tech initiatives really crashed-and-burned this year. Did BlackBerry executives really think that BlackBerry 10 would spark a miraculous turnaround, or were they simply going through the motions of promoting it? That's the key question as BlackBerry 10 devices fail to sell. Then there's Facebook's misbegotten attempt at 'skinning' the Android OS with its Home app. Or maybe Healthcare.gov counts as 2013's biggest debacle, with its repeated crashes and glitches and inability to carry out core functions. What do you think was the biggest software or hardware (or both) mishap of the past twelve months?"

Comments

Slash!dot Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

taco must be turning in his grave

Re:Slash!dot Beta

[chromas]

That's a good Python script you got there. Unfortunately, Slashdot is written in Perl.

Obligatory

[dubdays]

The year of the Linux desktop. But, dammit, 2014 is DEFINITELY going to be THE year!!!

Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

For demonstrating that forcing a tablet interface on desktop users does not help your bottom line.

Re:NSA leaking

[MobSwatter]

Then why does the economic damage predate the leak? Everyone knew what was going on from the days of the AT&T disclosure, Snowden only provided the physical evidence for Americans to act on it. I happen to have a little experience with the intelligence community, had a great uncle that was OSS when it incepted to be the CIA in 1947. Keep secrets they did, spy on Americans; no they didn't, weaken encryption resulting in fraudulent sales of security devices, no they did not, were they saints, not really however that was a matter of prospective, but as a nation we were stronger. Our constitution meant something then, so did a mans word, and sworn oath.

Re:All of the above

[Onuma]

Arguably, the mistakes RIM made with Blackberry go back about 7 years or so. When they didn't react smartly to the advent of the iPhone and Android devices, they started hammering the nails into their own coffin.

I nominate:

[Xeno man]

I'm gona throw in a nomination for EA and the launch of Sim City. While probably not the largest screw up, I would say they had the most warning. With security breaches or even building a new Health care website, there are unknowns. You can't predict when someone is going to steal your data or how they are going to do it outside of a few tech guys that know how their systems work and whos warnings go unheard. EA had everyone screaming at them to not use DRM but they did anyway. They were warned that if they did use DRM that servers would be maxed out on launch day. They claimed that they were prepared for it but obviously they were not. They were warned and people begged for them to listen but they didn't and come launch day, everything they were warned about happened. It wasn't a minor hiccup either as it took a month for everything to be sorted out.

If that's not a screw up, I don't know what is.

Re:I nominate:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sim City 4 screwup is even larger than DRM servers.

They claimed the need the servers to simulate a total lot of the cities and that this was too much for the average PC. So the need to simulate the cities on the server. That was a lie. Sim City 4 is not really a good simulation, it works with very simplified models which create all kinds of odd occurances in the cities (which are totally unrealistic). For example? They simulate Sims in packs of 1000s, so skyscrapers are empty when one "sim pack" leaves. Every Sim drives the shortest route to the closest(!) place of work and also from there to the closest (!) free house. That leads to jammed roades even if a bypass freeway is near (and empty), this leads to entire regions where people cannot find work even if there's a lot of shops, these simplified simulations lead to all kinds of stupidity in a game that claims to be a "simulation".

Everyone said their maps are too small. They ignored it and now people complain the maps are too small.

People did want to build their city, but now are forced to build several small ones in their "regions", I guess the developers and publishers had the wet dream to create a large, buzzing online environment where ten people each build their small, specialised city in their own region and happily working together. But totally neglected that their audience wants to build their own megacity, not ten small pieces or one small piece and work with someone else.

Sim City 4 is acutally a bigger screwup than you make it out to be and what sets this apart from other "bad" games are two things: First the lies and the deliberate deception of game magazines and customers before the release who much the game would actually simulate. Second, the screwups are not issues of bad implementation or limited budget of a small developer who planned and wanted too much. Many of the really big, bad issues of this games are actually working as designed. They are not bad code, incompetence of a few coders, bad planning what you can do, but fundamentally wrong strategy, misunderstanding what the franchise is, the attempt to turn it into something that cannot work with the franchise and planning from the very core by the publisher and game designers.

So yes, I do say Sim City 4 fully counts and EA/Maxis screwed up much more and on a much deeper level than parent is giving them credit for.

Website makeover

[evilviper]

Without a doubt, the biggest tech failure of the year is slashdot's new mobile site, and the horendous beta desktop site. I can't imagine the motivation behind the flashy, slow, non-functional mess. If classic.slashdot.org ever goes away, so too will I.

The Year No One Learned From Mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

2013 is notable for being the year the technology industry did not learn from its mistakes. There's no one single worst mistake. It's like the year Time magazine put a mirror on the cover - the entire industry is to blame!

Windows 8. Gnome 3. Unity. iOS 7. What is the lesson? Users do not want gratuitous change that destroys workflow patterns and muscle memory, and yet technology companies keep cramming them down our throats. In 2013, Windows 8.1 came out and it was just more of the same. iOS 7 destroyed everything we knew about Apple's "it just works" usability, and threw in a snow-blindness photo browser with a white background just to put salt in the wounds. The only thing we can look forward to is more change for the sake of change.

Healthcare.gov is just a symptom of a dysfunctional system of outsourcing to contractors who skim their money off the top, and then hire technology experts with whatever is left, insuring any technology project is going to fail. No one seems to care about quality. That's why software projects fail. Until structural changes are made in how technology is created, nothing will change.

Lessons were there to be learned from, but in 2013, forget it - no one cared.