Failures of web actors, and successes

Among the explanations of failures of projects launched with great fanfare by major Web players, is denounced especially the bureaucracy into big business. They lose their dynamism, responsiveness, and are away from concerns of users.
But this is not the only reason, some companies have absolutely no vision for the future and instead of Midas who turned everything into gold, they spend huge amounts of money to buy popular sites and convert them into flops that are sold for almost nothing or simply closed.

Microsoft

Reigning supreme in the field of software on desktops, the company is facing a changing market, as computers now are smartphones, netbooks or tablets.

• Kin
  After a big hype, Microsoft's mobile phone was quickly withdrawn from sale. It would be sold only a few thousand copies. It actually had no interest compared to competing products in IOS or Android.
• Windows Phone 7 is far behind competitors for mobile systems.
  

The field of mobile fails to Microsoft. But the firm has also experienced some successes.

• Kinect
  The control interface by gestures is a great success. Even if the technology comes from an external source, it has shown a certain openness that led hackers to use this equipment to do almost anything that contributed to his reputation.
• Windows 7
  Unlike Vista, which was poorly designed, according to specialists because of excessive bureaucracy, version 7 in one year has almost twice as many users than Vista which launched three years earlier.
• XBox
  The game console continues its momentum so Microsoft win its successful bet to compete from scratch to Japanese manufacturers Nintendo and Sony. Equipped with Kinect, it outperforms the other consoles.

In conclusion, the firm has successfully diversified into consoles but is virtually absent from the mobile market, currently the most active.

Google

Google trends to loses engineers exiling in other firms considered more dynamic. Projects from Google when announced are doing so much hype that their failure is more resounding.

• Buzz
  The integration of social functions to GMail, which intended to compete Facebook, mostly caused trouble and had to be disabled by default. This service is almost forgotten.
• Wave
  The tool of collaborative website, too complicated to use, has received little subscriptions. The project was abandoned and the source code given to the Apache Foundation.
• Google TV
  TV channels have one after another asked the deactivation of the service, it is saw as a way to divert their income. TV without content has an uncertain future.
• Chromebook
  The system which allows you to connect to the Internet and nothing more, does not sell. Besides, why choose a system that make less than that of a smartphone?
  

Nexus One also is cited as failure. It is less certain because the device was mainly intended to demonstrate the ability of Android, which was overwhelmingly adopted by manufacturers. The failure lies in the choice of distribution.
Also criticized, the search engine, considered less effective for the results even if it brings many new features in the presentation thereof.

Besides these failing projects, Google has also been successful in domain infinitely more important.

• Android
  Since the end of 2010, the operating system became one that was the most purchased. It is predicted a bright future and we see it like a future Windows for mobiles.
• Chrome
  The browser has continued taking market share from its launch in late 2008.

Other sites that success can not be denied: Youtube, Gmail, Earth, Maps ... See also the list of Google sites and Google services and tools.

It is therefore normal that a company that launches many projects know some failures. This should not hide the fact that Google is taking the importance on mobiles of Microsoft on desktop computers.

Apple

Everything seems to succeed to Apple, that made a success at something which no one previously thought.

• iPhone.
  The new model confirms the success of the touch screen, it is one of the best selling mobiles.
• iPad.
  The iPad has created a market from scratch. After its phenomenal success, all computer manufacturers have announced their models.
• iTunes.
  Multimedia software connects to iTunes Store and manage music, videos and TV on iPhones. It has the same success as Youtube to computers.

This should not be forgotten that the firm does not succeeds everything she does.

• Ping.
  Ping is to Apple what Buzz is to Google. The social networking site for music has had absolutely no success.

The firm has been controversial for its new conditions to the software on iPhone. It has to go back and give more freedom to developers.

Yahoo

With AOL, Yahoo is a bad student on the Web. First site a year ago, it has since fallen to fourth place.

• Search engine.
  It was the second search engine behind Google. But it continuously lost market share. In 2010 it is simply abandoned and replaced by Bing from Microsoft.
• Altavista.
  Bought by Overture, itself bought by Yahoo, was the first successful search engine at a time. Selling or closing is scheduled for 2011.
• Many sites owned by Yahoo and bought when they were very popular in 2010 were closed.

In 2009, the site Geocities bought by Yahoo and which a time was the third most visited site in the world (like Facebook is in 2010), is closed. Yahoo! had bought it and had eliminated its social functions that made the success of Facebook.

AOL

The capitalization of AOL in 2010 is now tiny fraction of what it was ten years ago.

• Bebo
  The social networking site similar to Facebook was bought by AOL in 2008 for $ 850 million and resold in 2010 to 10 million after losing 50% of its members.

Previously, AOL has done even better, having bought Netscape for $ 3 billion, it has just closed the site a few years later.

See also

• Obituaries on the Web.