Business Driven Technology 6th Edition by Paige Baltzan

Exercise 6

It is a sad but common tale-a dynamic company comes up with an innovative new product that utilizes cutting-edge technology in an exciting way that generates lots of hype and attention. But for some reason this new product fails to click with the masses and falls into oblivion, only to see other products gain massive success by following in its footsteps.
It's not always a case of right technology at the wrong time. Sometimes these first movers failed to build on their innovation, instead sitting on their initial achievements and letting more nimble competitors refine their idea into something more attractive and functional. And some just made too many mistakes to succeed.
Obtaining the first-mover advantage is critical to any business that wants to compete in the Internet economy. However, gaining a first-mover advantage is typically temporary, and without remaining innovative the company can soon fail. Here is a list of the top 10 first movers that flopped, according to Jim Rapoza of eWeek.
1. Apple Newton PDA -When it was launched in the early 90s, the Apple Newton was first lauded but later mocked because of its failings (it even had the honor of being spoofed on The Simpsons). But one can draw a straight line from the Newton to current products such as tablet PCs, smartphones, and the Apple iPhone.
2. PointCast -In 1997, one of the hottest products found on the desktop of nearly every IT worker was PointCast, which delivered selected news items directly to the desktop. It quickly launched the "push" craze, which just as quickly imploded spectacularly. But today's RSS and news feeds all owe a debt to PointCast.
3. Gopher Protocol -It was so close. Launched just before the web itself, Gopher quickly became popular in universities and business. Using search technology, it worked very much like a website, but it could not compete with the web itself.
4. VisiCalc -Often lauded as the first killer application for the PC, the VisiCalc spreadsheet was a must-have for early PC-enabled businesses but quickly fell behind more polished spreadsheets from Lotus and Microsoft.
5. Atari -For those of a certain age, the word Atari is synonymous with video games. The pioneer in home gaming consoles failed to innovate in the face of more nimble competitors.
6. Diamond Rio -For $200 and with 32MB of RAM (with a SmartMedia slot for memory expansion), the Rio helped launch the MP3 revolution. That is, until white earbuds and a thing called the iPod took over.
7. Netscape Navigator -Netscape Navigator was essentially the web for users in the early to mid-1990s. But Netscape could not withstand the Microsoft onslaught, along with plenty of mistakes the company made itself, and now only lives on as the original basis of the Mozilla browsers.
8. AltaVista -Not the first search engine, but the first to use many of the natural language technologies common today and the first to gain real web popularity, AltaVista failed to keep up with technological changes.
9. Ricochet Networks -Nothing created geek lust like sitting next to someone who had a Ricochet card plugged into the laptop. Look, she is in a cab and accessing the Internet at ISDN speeds! But Ricochet never expanded to enough cities to be a serious player.
10. IBM Simon Phone -The iPhone's $499 price is nothing compared with the $900 price tag the IBM Simon had when it finally became available in 1994. But it pioneered most of the features found in today's smartphones and even beat the iPhone when it came to a buttonless touch-screen interface.
Can you name another technology product that failed Why did it fail What could the company have done differently for it to succeed