MGT 463 Discussion

Reply to each of the following 5 discussions – Label each response

1 – PJ

I can think of two things right of the bet when thinking about Google's successes and failures of the company's innovations.  One of the biggest successes that I saw and have used countless times and still continue on using it is "Google Maps."  This has helped me get places I need to go when I need directions to get there.  It is super easy to use and helpful and it shows some great details on the maps you look at it as well.  I think this was a great innovation when talking about Google's success over the years.  This was introduced on February 8, 2005.  As of now it’s been 14 years, and it is still a huge success in my opinion.  The data doesn’t lie when it comes to Riley Panko.  Panko (2018) stated the percentages:  77% of people use Google Maps, the second highest is Waze (12%), then Apple Maps (11%), and finishing the top four is MapQuest (8%).  Surveys stated the reasons for people using their favorite navigation app is because of clearer directions (25%), preferred features (20%), user-friendly design/interface (20%), best directions for non-drivers (17%), and never used another navigation app (14%) (Panko, 2018).

The second thing that I thought about being a big failure for Google was the Google Glass wear product.  It was not a great looking product, it was bulky, and created a lot of attention to the face because it looked so weird to everyone that wasn't wearing them.  However, for the first people to pay for this product spent $1,500 each for early access to the newest tech product created by Google (Metz, 2014, para. 1).  According to Metz (2014), it had a lot of great features attached to the product, but the problem with it was that none of them really worked well at all (para. 4).  "Glass does a handful of things—it can take videos, give you turn-by-turn directions, make phone calls, or search the Web—but it doesn’t do any of them all that well" (Metz, 2014, para. 4).  Another reason that caused it to fail because it was not fashionable.  Isabelle Olsson, the lead designer for Glass, said "...the prospect of having more fashionable options “sounds kind of banal in a way” but is even more important than miniaturizing the technology... if you can pick the frame that you would normally pick and that you’re normally comfortable with, it’s going to look more like you" (Metz, 2014, para. 18-19).  Google Glass was introduced for the first time as "Google Explorers" on April 15, 2013 for $1,500 and later became available to the public on May 15, 2014.

Resources:

Metz, R. (2014, November 26).  Google Glass is dead; long live smart glasses. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/532691/google-glass-is-dead-long-live-smart-glasses/

Panko, R. (2018, July 10). The popularity of Google Maps: trends in navigation apps in 2018. The Manifest. Retrieved from https://themanifest.com/app-development/popularity-google-maps-trends-navigation-apps-2018

2 – RC

Apple is one of the world’s most successful and recognizable brands. The company has been a trend setter in various markets and product environments and has built an unmistakable presence in various technological fields through its illustrious career. However, some products did not exactly meet the mark when, and have since been forgotten.

 

Apple Lisa – Failure

There are copious amounts of articles on the internet that list the top Apple product failures, and a large percentage include the Apple Lisa. The Lisa was a commercial computer released in 1983. The Lisa was the first machine to incorporate a mouse for navigation and the first to use icons and images as opposed to lines of text (Huddleston, 2018.)  What’s more interesting is the Lisa’s technology laid the groundwork for some of Apple’s most successful products, including the Macintosh. The main reason the Lisa failed was because of its price point. The Lisa retailed at almost $10,000 USD- which to me is an outstanding amount of money. Considering inflation, that price tag would be equal to $25,444 in 2018(westegg.) Of course, markets, availability and the amount of substitute products available today have changed, but it is almost impossible to fathom a consumer spending that type of money for a computer.  Ultimately, the price for the Lisa’s new technology exceed consumer demand for the product.

 

Apple I-Phone- Success

The I-phone needs little introduction. Since the products inception and throughout its many versions, the I-phone has been a leader in the mobile phone industry. There is various reason for the I-Phones Success. For one, the I-phone incorporated many convenient features into one device. The user can download and store music, take digital photos and access the internet all from once device. In short, the I-phone allowed for greater convenience for users. Furthermore, the I-phone was at the forefront of the Internet of Things with connectivity to the Apple watch, Apple Tv, automobiles and other devices. That said, all these features are very easy to us and are presented in a simple manner for users of all technological backgrounds to use and enjoy.

 References

 Bajarin, T. (2012, May 7). 6 Reasons Apple Is So Successful. In Time. Retrieved from http://techland.time.com/2012/05/07/six-reasons-why-apple-is-successful/

 Huddleston, T. (2018, September 1). Remember these failed Apple products? They were some of the tech giant's biggest flops . In CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/from-the-newton-to-lisa-failed-apple-products.html

 https://westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

3 – LS

Amongst many successful products that Apple has come up with, I have chosen to write about the iPhone because in my opinion it is one of the most successful products of all time. Ever since its creation in 2007 the iPhone is now on its 10th model. An article written in 2014 by Time Magazine stated that Apple had sold over 500 million iPhones and was the first cell phone company to introduce a touchscreen smart phone that handles music, internet browsing phone calls, and much more. The impact that the iPhone has had on modern mobile communication cannot even be compared to any other phone. Although there are other companies creating phones similar to the iPhone, they will never amount to the engineering Steve Jobs, iPhone. In the first quarter of 2018, Apple sold 42.3 million iPhones, and 216 million, worldwide in 2017. 56% of Apples total revenue came from iPhone sales. (Porter, 2018). 

A failure that Apple created was Ping - Music Social Media Network. Ping was a social media network that combined music-oriented social networking with recommendations for finding new music. Ping allowed users to follow artists that they liked and view posts from artists and friends. Ping launched in 2010 and had one million members but quickly closed down in 2012. (Barbee, 2018). At the time, Apple was booming with the iPad. That is also when social media such as Facebook and Twitter became extremely popular so Apple decided to launch a social media network of its own. Although Ping ended up failing, Apple as iTunes and Apple Music which are somewhat similar and very successful so Apple took its failure and still made themselves successful.

References

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45044963

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/biggest-apple-fails-and-disappointments/

https://www.time.com/apple/iphone

4 - AV

Failure:

In 2006, Apple released the iPod Hi-FI, a stereo system that allowed iPod users to play music directly from their iPod. It was their first home speaker system and was designed to compete with companies like Bose that had built in iPod docks. According to the initial press release, the iPod Hi-Fi promised surround sound speaker quality that has the flexibility to be portable with its battery powered option (Apple Inc., 2006). Additional highlights included charging the iPod while connected and remote controlled from anywhere in the room. The system was sold at a premium price of $349 and marketed as re-inventing the home stereo, however did not go over well with customers.  After two years of low sales, Apple discontinued the product. 

The failure was mostly attributed to timing. The iPod Hi-Fi was introduced well after the iPod and stereo systems that provided iPod docking. The release was actually near the end of the iPod era, because the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 replaced the need for streaming music on the iPod. If Apple had created the stereo in the beginning after the launch of the iPod, it may have been more successful as a new product to the market that enhanced the iPod user’s experience. Apple’s timing was just too late to the market to entice consumers to switch their stereo systems over to the Hi-Fi for that much money. 

Success:

The original iPhone released by Apple in 2007 was a huge success. It was unlike the well-known Blackberry and Motorola smartphones with the keyboard and stylus control. The iPhone revolutionized the way we know and love to use mobile phones today with the touch of our fingers. Apple described their new product as “a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone. We are all born with the ultimate pointing device—our fingers—and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse” (Ritchie, 2019). Most of the smartphones available had keyboards and if they had touch screen features, a stylus was used to function. They were still new and mostly used by companies and early adopters (Ritchie, 2019). The new touchscreen interface feature attracted mainstream customers, and soon smartphones were adopted by everyone. 

The success was due to creating an innovative product that was technologically advanced compared to current products. It was unlike any smartphone on the market. Leaders of Motorola and Blackberry underestimated the iPhone saying that “Apple's design-centric approach [will] ultimately limit its appeal by sacrificing needed enterprise functionality” and “[Apple] will have the most expensive phone, by far, in the marketplace. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share” (Ritchie, 2019). They did not see how mainstream consumers would be able to afford the product or how enterprise level consumers would find the functionality useful. Apple was able to disrupt the market while competitors were blinded to it because it was not something consumers were using or even knew they wanted. 

References

Apple, Inc. (2006, February 28). Apple announces ipod hi-fi [Press release]. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2006/02/28Apple-Announces-iPod-Hi-Fi/

Ritchie, R. (2019, January 22). The secret history of iphone. www.imore.com. Retrieved from https://www.imore.com/history-iphone-original

5 – KL

The company I chose to do my discussion on was Apple, in all reality every giant company who is successful today must have many failures along the way. When researching this topic, I came across an article on CNBC’s website called “Remember these failed Apple Products? They were some of the tech companies biggest flops.” (Huddleston, T. 2018)

I think we can all agree that the Apple I phone has been a ginormous success for Apple. The I phone really has changed the game on how we use a cellular phone and really has been a good definition of disruptive technology. I am sure all of us can think of the days when the smaller your phone the cooler you were, then there were blackberry’s both concepts gone or are non-existent today. But everything can’t be perfect and reading this article there are several things that they have failed on.  

I found this article interesting for several reasons, not just because it talks about what Apple has gotten wrong or failed at, but what exactly they are calling fails. One of the things that they say as a fail was Macintosh TV. This was an Apple computer that you were able to watch T.V on. To me this sounds so familiar to what we do every day now. This was launched in 1993 and scrapped three months later. The reason the article gives for failing is #1. Cost, this computer cost $2,100 and you could only do one or the other, not both at the same time. They did sell 10,000 Macintosh TV’s in those three months. Now today they have Apple TV. 

Another fail that this article brings up is Apple’s Newton Message Pad, a personal digital assistant. This was a handheld device that you could use a stylus to write notes and it would translate those notes to text. In reading, the text never turned out that good and Apple scrapped this project after only selling 50,000 in three months. And today they have developed the I Pad.

These are just two examples out of many others that Apple has failed on. I also think that if Apple did not fail at these products who knows where they would be as a company today.  As noted in this article that Steve Jobs once said, “You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn… If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far”.  Just like watching the video from Week 5's assignments on Innovation at Google, all of the engineers  that were interviewed, not one said they were afraid of failing. There are so many successful CEOs that have said that failing is what makes them who they are today and I agree 100% with that. 

 

Reference

 

                Huddleston, T (2018, September 1) Remember these failed Apple products? They were some of the tech giant's biggest flops.  Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/from-the-newton-to-lisa-failed-apple-products.