Technologizer: Albatross Face-Off -Microsoft Bob v. the Apple Cube

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By Harry McCracken

I promise we’ll stop commemorating the 15th anniversary of Microsoft Bob after today–and today is the anniversary of the app’s formal release–but bear with me for one last item. Bob’s great significance isn’t as a piece of software–it’s as an albatross around Microsoft’s corporate neck. Just about everyone who wants to take a swipe at a new Microsoft product finds it expedient to compare the item in question to Bob. And in that respect, it’s eerily similar to another product released five years later: Apple’s G4 Cube. Like Bob, the Cube was launched with immense fanfare but sold poorly and died after a year. And it, too, is an albatross–one that will live forever as the product people bring up when they want to predict that a new Apple offering is going to be a dud.

After the jump, a quick comparison of these unexpected soulmates, in the form of a T-Grid.

[This post is excerpted with Harry’s permission from his Technologizer blog.]

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