CES 2008: Product Death Watch
Posted on January 19th, 2008 in Business & Industry | No Comments »
It’s far too easy to chronicle about all the fun new and exciting products at a show like CES so I thought I’d share with you about some of the unreported “failing†products at the show – companies whose strategies and offerings just make you scratch your head and say WTF.
Nero – Dieing ROM
Giving up on it tried and true formula for success, a great burning application, The latest Nero 8 throws every video and audio manipulation and play back tool under the sun at you. When I questioned company reps about the decision to blot the bumblebees out of the once straight forward app, the answer, “we need to differentiate ourselves from the built in burning functions of Windows.†News flash guys, underpowered personal video editing suites are also part of base OS offerings these days too, MS Movie Maker and iLife’s apps come to mind, If you must abandon your core competencies please come up with a better excuse.
WiMax – “WhyMaxâ€
One stop by the Intel booth would reveal two things; 1) The entire show staff were polished, positive and positively jacked up on Caffenie/Zoloft cocktails and 2) delusional enough to believe WiMax is still viable. Guys, maybe you missed the fact that WiFi is here to stay and most major carriers are backing away from metro, much less nation wide mobile, deployments of WiMax. But hey reality is soooo over-rated, can I get some of whatever you guys are on?
Palm – The Circle is Complete
Two years ago I saw the then new and unproven Microsoft Windows smart phone versions of the Treo. I commented to the pleasant Palm rep then this was a sad day and marked the death of the Palm OS, for soon all Palm devices would only be available with Microsoft Mobile OSes. She assured me that nothing could be farther from the truth, and Palm was “committed to both platforms.†This year when asked, company reps proudly proclaimed that while the Centro (the only new Palm OS based phone) is a nice low end offering, all of the companies present efforts are in the Windows Mobile arena.
TiVo – You will be assimilated
Times up TiVo, it was a good run and we will all miss you, but your wild and free single days are over. You had some good times with DirectTV and various Cable companies, but you aren’t getting any younger doll – time to look for a nice suitor and get married. Unfortunately like they say, all the good ones are taken, Vista Media Center is almost there (and already engaged to AT&T’s U-verse), and Apple TVs showing steady improvement, don’t expect them to come a calling. But your still the original UI beauty queen, it will be interesting to see who your knight in shining armor will be.
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