The Biggest Tech Fails and Flops of 2011

When hackers broke into the PlayStation Network in April, Sony had to shut its online gaming service down for a month and rebuild it with better defenses. The downtime would have been bad enough to make this list, but even worse was that the invaders made off with user names, email addresses, passwords, mailing addresses, and other personal information. Sony's six-day delay in explaining the extent of the damage didn't help.

Netflix got on customers' bad side in July by unbundling its DVD and streaming services, effectively raising prices by $6 per month for people who wanted both. Then, in September, Netflix announced that it would spin off DVD rentals into a second company called Qwikster, with separate billing, reviews, and queues. The backlash caused Netflix to change its mind about Qwikster, but the damage to the company's reputation--and stock price--was done. Netflix stock now sits at about $70 per share, down from $300 per share in June.

"Amateur hour is over," Research in Motion declared in an early advertisement for the BlackBerry PlayBook, which the company launched in April. It was an odd hook for a tablet that lacked email, calendar, and contacts apps at launch. Those omissions, along with the PlayBook's shortage of third-party apps, cemented its fate as a failed Apple iPad competitor. RIM is now clearing out PlayBook inventory at $200 per tablet, and at a cost to the company of $485 million.

If you spend most of your computer time in a browser, Google argued, why not have a fast, secure laptop that strips away everything else? The concept was alluring, but the first Chromebooks--which started shipping in June and are based on Google's Chrome OS--simply aren't fast enough to justify the limited functionality. For instance, PCWorld's Jason Cross gave the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook a 2.5-star rating, and reportedly overall Chromebook sales have been dismal.

Color was an iPhone app that boasted all the right buzzwords when it launched in March: social, mobile, real-time, photo sharing. Maybe that's why investors dumped $41 million into the company. Too bad that the app itself was confusing, and that the idea of sharing photos with everyone around you works only if everyone around you is also using the app. Color has now reinvented itself as a live-broadcasting tool for Facebook. Next step: Profit!

For some reason, HP thought that a tablet that was thicker and heavier than Apple's iPad, and had fewer apps than the iPad, but cost the same as the iPad, would have a chance of selling well. Of course, the HP TouchPad bombed when it launched in June, and HP decided to stop making WebOS devices. On the bright side, the ensuing $100 fire sale catapulted the TouchPad to number two in tablet sales, according to the NPD Group. Hooray?

Acer, Asus, Motorola, and Samsung sold roughly 500,000 Android tablets in the United States from January to October, according to the NPD Group. Although U.S. sales for the iPad are unknown, Apple has sold 11.2 million tablets worldwide in the last quarter alone. Blame the competition's slow sales on an occasionally sluggish Android tablet interface, a small number of tablet-optimized apps, high initial prices, or poor marketing. In any case, the Android invasion has been no threat to the iPad.

Only a couple of years ago, television makers dreamed of a 3D takeover that would restore their profits as the price of LCD TVs plummeted. But this year, 3D TV has been a disappointment. Market research firm SNL Kagan projects 3D TV sales to decline this year, and a survey by the NPD Group shows customer indifference to 3D on the rise. Turns out not a lot of people want to pay premium prices to wear bulky 3D glasses while watching a limited selection of 3D content. Who knew?

Although Google TV launched in 2010, the full extent of its failure finally became apparent this year, when Logitech ate nearly $100 million due to poor sales of its Revue Google TV set-top box. To move units, Logitech had to cut the price from $300 to $100, after reporting negative sales. In October, Google revamped its television platform to emphasize simplicity and Android apps, but any hopes of a living-room insurgence will have to wait until 2012, when the company regroups with new hardware partners.

Launching in June after 15 years of development hell, Duke Nukem Forever had no chance of living up to anyone's expectations. However, the finished product was so bad, and its raunchy attempts at humor so offensive and unfunny, that the game should have remained vaporware. Duke Nukem Forever received an unfavorable 49 out of 100 score on Metacritic, and Ars Technica wrote that the "people involved should be ashamed." Sales were lower than expected, too. Doesn't mean that a sequel won't show up, though.

After the failure of the TouchPad tablet, HP stunned the tech world in August by announcing plans to sell or spin off its entire PC business in order to focus on enterprise software. That was a bad idea, because HP's enterprise success is due to its ability to offer both hardware and software to businesses. Stocks plummeted, HP's board sacked CEO Leo Apotheker in September, and the company promptly reversed course on eliminating its PC business. Apotheker, however, got a $13 million golden parachute, while an estimated 500 employees who worked on WebOS lost their jobs.

Apple's newfound riches in the consumer market have turned into bad news for the creative professionals who once carried the company on their backs. Final Cut Pro X--the latest version of Apple's video-editing software--is a cheaper, simpler program that eliminates some tools on which many professional editors rely. Apple faced a backlash from these users after Final Cut's June launch, but saw no noticeable effect on its bottom line.

Although the Nintendo 3DS impresses with glasses-free 3D, at its launch in March the starting price tag of $250 and the lack of great software scared off customers. To save its newborn handheld, Nintendo had to cut the price to $180 four months later. The new price helps, and the recent launch of Super Mario 3D Land has given the 3DS a huge sales boost, but the initial price was a major miscalculation that contributed to Nintendo's first annual loss in three decades.

Desperate to accelerate the release of new features and keep up with Google's Chrome browser, Mozilla switched Firefox to a rapid release schedule in June that brought new software versions every six weeks. The switch had unfortunate side effects, such as broken extensions and alienated enterprise users who couldn't keep up. And it didn't stop Mozilla's market-share slide, either: In November, Firefox fell into third place behind Chrome, according to StatCounter.

Pure Digital's Flip camcorders were popular when Cisco bought the company and its products for $590 million worth of stock in 2009. But since then, Cisco let the product line languish while smartphones with built-in video cameras rose to popularity. In April, Cisco abruptly killed the Flip in a major restructuring of the company's consumer business--a sad demise for a once-proud gadget.

10 Tech Wins of 2011