With Bill Gate’s last day of work being today – you can see a great list of his top ten greatest hits (and misses) over at
My favorite miss – The Auto PC:
Riding high on its previously-introduced sister products — the Handheld PC and Palm PC platforms, now dead and transformed into Windows Mobile, respectively — Microsoft’s Auto PC initiative was promised to herald a revolution for in-car entertainment and productivity. There’s no question it was well ahead of its time; in fact, many of the features debuted in Auto PC have gone on to become standard fare in today’s cars. Problem was, when it launched your ride was already pimped with a mere CD player. In-car navigation, voice recognition, and MP3 support were still the stuff of science fiction in those dark days (particularly at the four-digit asking price), and the whole thing was doomed to a geeky, spendy niche. Though products were initially expected from several manufacturers, Clarion ended up being the only one to actually produce a head unit.
