The INQUIRER'S Top Five Damp Squibs

ROBERT SCOBLE, for it is he, says that Microsoft will make a big announcement on 27 February. It’s a program so great it brought a tear the great man’s eye, he says here.

He won’t say what it is but to bring a man out in tears usually involves something truly majestic and awe-inspiring, so much so that the world seems to be repainted in new tones and our words are not capable of expressing those hues. Standing on the garden rake will also make you blub, of course.

But we’ve been here before, haven’t we? The Great New Thing often disappoints despite, or perhaps because of, the big build-up.

Here are five shows that didn’t match the overture, and reminded us of the wisdom of Flavor Flav when he sang, “Don’t believe the hype”.

5. The Gphone. It was going to blow Microsoft away and make Apple green but it turned out to be an open-source software platform with, drumroll please, OS, apps and middleware. Google calls the platform Android and devices are expected this year. But there again, who cares?

4. Apple Newton. This was going to change the face of computing (what Apple product wasn’t?) but when it arrived looked a lot like it had been planned by committee – a committee that didn’t include software or usability testers. Outsized, expensive and usable, this product did for consumer electronics what Ford did for cars, but only for the period of time when it was designing the Edsel.

3. Microsoft Bob. With Apple on its uppers and Windows everywhere in 1995, the Redmondians thought they could come up with a new user interface paradigm. Always be wary when people want to give you a new paradigm. Bob was intended as a friendlier UI for PC noobs but
turned out to be a dog of the most mongrel kind. Imagine the meeting: “Agreed, gentlemen, Bob has not been the success story we anticipated when we set out to create a human-like assistant but we have another idea up our sleeves that we think will build on some of the lessons we learned from Bob. We’re calling it Project Clippit…”

2. Amstrad Emailer. Sir Alan Sugar had hit the jackpot with the PCW and some saw a mysterious forthcoming product as a possible second coming for the Brain of Brentwood. Unfortunately the cocktail of phone/email hybrid device, slow link, small screen and paying for email was unpalatable to all but a few desperadoes. Still, Alan Partridge had one and you can pick one of these Frankenstein monsters up for £35 on Amazon. If you’re keen, don’t forget to respond to all those lucrative Nigerian email offers first.

1. Ginger, or IT. Assuming you had marvellous hearing, solid flooring and the hardware to hand, you could have heard a pin drop when the details of Project Ginger were finally announced. The pre-release claims for this product included suggestions that it could change the face of transportation. Steve Jobs said it could be “as big a deal as the PC”. It turned out to be the Segway, a Sinclair C5* with a different seating arrangement. At least the Sinclair spawned an excellent Punch cartoon showing a C5 driver being arrested in a dodgy part of town. The caption: “Honestly, officer, I wasn’t kerb crawling. This is as fast as it can go.” µ