Every time someone comes up with a new invention in tech, they often believe it will be the next big thing. In fact, even some of the most successful people in the tech industry have had some false starts and some inventions that never became what they had initially thought they would become.
They used their resources, went for industrial design protections, and did everything else necessary to launch their tech innovations into the market, only to fail miserably. This then begs the question, why do some tech innovations fail? Here are a number of reasons why:
A flawed product with lots of hype
Before 2007, Microsoft dominated the operating system market with 97% of the market share. As a result, almost every new innovation they introduced had lots of hype and fanfare. The problem with this dominance is that it often brings with it some level of preoccupation with the fanfare and less time put into creating a product with no flaws.
Such an organization can often lay emphasis on consensus and preserving harmony with every product it creates, resulting in products that fail to meet the changing demands of the market. This is, perhaps, why Microsoft Vista was such a big flop. 18 months after its launch, less than 10% of enterprise PCs the world over were running the OS. It had many problems including bugs and security flaws.
Pricing
The price of a new invention can make an otherwise great new product to fail to take off. A good example of this is Apple’s Pippin which the company had hoped would introduce gamers to “the future of cyberspace.” It was not to be.
While the product, which Apple created in collaboration with Bandai, a Japanese toymaker, was nice, the introductory price of 64,000 yen and $600 was too high for most gamers, especially with Nintendo, its competitor at a third of the price. When Steve Jobs returned at the helm of the tech giant, one of his first acts as CEO was to shut down the program that created Pippin.
