१ Microsoft Vista

Microsoft (MSFT) Vista was released worldwide on January 30, 2007. It was the most recent generation of the flagship product of the world's largest software company. Vista was created to improve the security of the most widely used PC operating system in the world. The securities features were not much better than the previous versions of Windows based on most reviews of the software. Vista was also not compatible with a number of older PCs which limited the number of users who were likely to upgrade from the earlier version of Windows, known as XP. Many analysts claim that Vista also ran more slowly on PCs than XP. All of these factors prevented Vista from being viewed as clearly better than its predecessors. According to research site Net Applications, as of last month Vista's global share of PC operating systems was less than 24%. Windows XP had 62% of the market and Apple's (AAPL) OS X product had over 9%. When Vista was launched, PC Magazine said, "Call it a nice-to-have product rather than a must-have." Microsoft recently announced its first quarterly revenue drop in 23 years. The day of the earnings release CNNMoney observed, "Microsoft's Vista operating system, which was released in early 2007, never took off like the company had hoped. Sales in the division that produces Vista fell 16% in the previous quarter. User satisfaction has been underwhelming, and IT departments have largely opted to stick with Vista's predecessor, Windows XP." The company is rushing Vista's replacement, Windows 7, to market and hopes to have it out by the end of the year.

The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last

Several of the best-funded and most-publicized tech launches of the last ten years have ended in failure. Many large technology companies which had significant market share and product advantages in large industries lost those advantages.

24/7 Wall St. looked at both start-ups and products introduced by companies that did not survive to create a list of the most colossal tech failures of the last decade. To make the list, a product had to be widely recognized and widely available to customers. It had to be aimed at a large global market. It had to be technologically equal to or superior to its competition. It had to be a product or new company that had the possibility of bringing in billions of dollars in revenue based on the sales of similar or competing products. Finally, it had to clearly miss the mark of living up to the potential that its creators expected, and that the public and press were lead to believe was possible.

—Douglas A. McIntyre