Life has its ups and downs, the economy is cyclical (especially technology's boom and bust cycles), business is feast or famine, what goes around comes around. The older you get, the more you realize that everything about life is a roller-coaster.
This week began with a global market sell-off over fears of an economic recession hitting America. For the record, I don't agree that we're heading for recession. On the other hand, it's not reasonable to believe in a perpetual bull market. That's just not the way it is. What goes up must come down. Maybe not all the way down, but somewhat.
According to Wikipedia (so it must be right), the macroeconomic definition of recession is declining gross domestic product (GDP) for two successive quarters. But these days, the term recession is associated more with declining economic factors, like corporate earnings and employment, for at least a few months. ... Read More
Every few years, some new technology or application comes along that everyone's sure will miraculously conquer every obstacle in its path and, in some ludicrously short time period, make existing technology obsolete. And then, long after all the media hype fades away and investors' checkbooks disappear, well, nothing happens.
So what? Who cares? Why bother talking about our industry's bombs, the next big things that weren't? Well, for one thing, it's interesting to note how hungry we all are for news about new technology. It gets us excited. We complain about media hype, but love the hype.
It's also fascinating how existing technology has this way of hanging on by its fingernails way past the point of its predicted obsolescence. More importantly, we learn more from mistakes than we do from successes. That's part of the scientific method: hypothesis, test, learn, repeat until you get it right.
Lastly, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Those are all good enough reasons for me. So here are my top 10 technology flops. But first, some ground rules. I stuck to the last 50 years or so. And I avoided specific company products. We've heard enough about the IBM PCjr, Apple Newton, Microsoft Bob, and OS2 to last 10 lifetimes. ... Read More
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