Computeractive's top five Microsoft flops

With the recent release of Windows Phone 7 and the hype surrounding pre-order sales of Xbox Kinect, Microsoft is hoping to release two more major successes onto the market.

But the 'next big things' from the company haven’t always gone on to be such huge successes. Here are our top five Microsoft flops.

1) Windows Vista: Stephen Fry recently compared this version of Microsoft's operating system to something unpleasant on the bottom of his shoe, and the general consensus was that Vista was an unmitigated disaster.

Businesses were reluctant to install it on their systems, tech-geeks were irritated about the issues with digital rights management (DRM) and everyone else seemed to take exception to it being oddly slow and buggy.

The problem for Vista was it started off badly and then seemed to stumble uncontrollably from one issue to the next. No matter how hard Microsoft tried, it couldn’t get people to like Vista.

The reason it comes in at number one on our list is that everyone has heard about it and everyone has a chuckle at its expense. It had pleanty of good points and some of those were moved over the to excellent Windows 7. But Vista's dirty laundry was all too public.

2) Bob: Not many people remember Bob (the software is a mere footnote on Microsoft’s obsolet e product list), and that's possibly a good thing.

Microsoft decided that Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were so bewildering to potential newcomers that they required a cartoon dog and patronising instructions to explain everything.

Bob essentially plopped the user in a strange cartoon house of the dammed and let them 'explore' their computer by clicking on various household items.

This might have been fine had it not been so cripplingly slow to navigate around that doing even the simplest of tasks was abject misery.

Imagine a whole world of Clippy the Office Paperclip and you're pretty close to what this is all about. Still, Bob retains a cult following and there is something endearing about it. Take a look at this video tour of Bob.

3) Windows Mobile: Not the new Windows Phone 7, but the old, much maligned, infuriating Windows Mobile operating system. Microsoft's last foray into the mobile world was somewhat clumsy to say the least.

With Apple seemingly wooing all before it with the super-sleek iPhone, Microsoft continued to bumble along with Windows Mobile.

Containing more software than you could shake a Blackberry at, seemingly endless bugs and an interface that some users are still trying to work out to this very day, Windows Mobile suffered severely from appearing rather bloated.

A lot of the time it seemed very as if Microsoft had simply played around with a full version of Windows, broken it a bit and shoved it onto a mobile device. Closing applications with a tiny 'X' in the corner of the screen was just one of an array of bewildering features.

4) Zune: Microsoft attempted to be cool, and failed. Zune, the name for both a portable media device (that never even made it to the UK) and Microsoft’s version of iTunes, has simply never taken off.

Microsoft has put fistfuls of cash into the project, marketed it and tried in vain to make people like it - but after a lot of hot air, all the company has is a flop.

The biggest problem was that the Zune wasn’t an iPod. And everyone wanted an iPod. Microsoft simply couldn’t position its device so that it would sell and consequently it was never a must-have.

There might not be a lot wrong with it, but with a tiny market share the Zune devices are far from a success.

They still persevere though; Zune is the media platform of choice for Windows Phone 7, so maybe, in some form, it can (eventually) start earning its keep.

5) Kin: Maybe the company should stick to software, no? The Kin was a phone from Microsoft that lasted less than two months before being binned. Lasting from April 2010 until June 2010, it was only ever released in the USA despite a planned EU release.

The Kin was the result of significant investment from Microsoft and resulted in even more significant embarrassment for the company as it totally flopped.

The issue, as many observed, was Microsoft once again attempting to be 'cool' and crack the teen market; something that outside of the Xbox 360, the company has failed to do with alarming regularity.

But it wasn't just a failure of 'coolness' that doomed the Kin. With poor hardware, extortionate pricing and being critically slammed in reviews, the device was a major failure for the Redmond-based company. So much so, that one employee felt the need share their anguish in an emotional email.

So, will the Kinect be a success? And can Windows Phone 7 finally position Microsoft as a competitive force in the mobile market? The early signs are good but, as always, only time will tell.