10 Worst Tech Industry Decisions Ever


Bangalore: No doubt, Information Technology, software and computer companies are known for some of the best decisions they took and made a breakthrough. But they also have their share of poor executive decisions and mismanagement. Here are 10 of the top worst decision ever made in the history of technology industry which has caused billions of dollars of revenue loss. Some have even resulted in the downfall of entire companies.

#10 - IBM, Digital Research

In the late 1970's, IBM began development of its legendary 5150 PC for which it needed an operating system. There was only one serious contender, Digital Research's CP/M, which ran on a number of early personal computers.

IBM attempted to contact Digital Research's founder and CEO, Gary Kildall, to license CP/M for use on the 5150 but when negotiations failed, IBM went looking for another option.

Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen at Microsoft, sensed a great opportunity and approached a tiny software company, Seattle Computer Products, which had an x86-compatible OS which used a similar command interpreter like CP/M called 86-DOS. Microsoft purchased the OS and permanent usage rights, which they then renamed as "DOS", for just $75,000.

Microsoft's MS-DOS went on to sell tens of millions of licenses, and the software business for Windows and later products that Microsoft built upon it turned the company into an industry giant.

Digital Research could have had the same deal and IBM could have imposed stricter licensing terms on MS-DOS. But it never happened.

#9 - Osborne Computer

In 1982 Dr. Adam Osborne, a man who has been credited with creating the portable computer industry announces the “Executive” OCC-2. Due to the pre-announcement of it while the current product CP/M-based Osborne 1 was still in the reseller channel, buyers were no longer interested in it.

Osborne was also facing heavy competition from companies like Kaypro, Apple and IBM, so the timing couldn’t possibly have been worse. By November 1983, the company went bankrupt, and Osborne Computer Corporation was no more.