You know every year things happen in the world of tech that leave us scratching our heads. Here are the Top 5 blunders of 2011. Blunders that some one had to get fired over.

Number 5 – Flip Camera

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cisco paid $590 Million to buy Flip in 2009 and then in April 2011, they killed it all. They didn’t scale it all, they din’t license the technology and didn’t even sell it as a loss, they just shut it down. Yes, smart phones are bearing down hard on “flip cameras”, but Flip was a dominant brand in a still decent category, synonymous with those kind of cameras. It doesn’t require any R&D at this point and how much money did they leave at the table at this point.

Number 4 – WebOS and HP PCs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HP announced in august suddenly that they are killing of Web OS mobile platforms and devices and selling or spinning of there PC divisions. Don’t those two deserve separate Press releases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was bold out of the blue and it made HP look like it never got mobile and it scared of there PC clients and partners. The Whole Debacle cost the CEO his gig and HP as the Silicon Valley Visionary.

Number 3 – Sony PSN Breach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a Year of unprecedented hacks and attacks, Sony PSN hack was the ugliest. In early April, PlayStation network was brought to its knees and the customers and the customer records of sum of 100 million users were pinched, largely stored unencrypted all in PSN and Sony Qriocity were down for like 3 weeks. Sony made amends by tossing users with some free games and stuff.

Number 2 – RIM

The Blackberry Makers din’t have any one product or moment that its fate turned on this year and maybe that was the problem. 2011 in general was the year that the question “what’s up with blackberry?” was on everyone’s lips. Apple retained the title for the most popular smartphone. Android took over as the most popular platform. Windows phone as the most promising. And RIM got the kudos for the having a good keyboard. Not Much to work with there.

Number 1 – NetFlix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you hear folks say your company strategy is gonna be studied in business schools for years to come that’s either real good or real bad. For Netflix, check the latter box. In July, the company raised the cost for a DVD plus streaming plan from $10 to $16, a 60% price hike overnight. The Backlash was big. Subscribers cancellation were nasty headlines sent a once darling of home video in a U-turn. Then, they “fixed it” by announcing Qwikster, a new company to handle DVD rentals separately from there streaming because nothing takes a User’s mind of a 60% price hike like a 100% hike in hassles. Well, they reversed that Qwikster ID a few days later with a price hike stake and the worst part about the story is NetFlix is still a great Service at a great price, but no one notices that anymore because its a banked up brand, all they had to do is handle it right but i guess they din’t want to give up this number 1 slot to RIM.