2016 technology industry graveyard

Tech vendors only have so many resources, and as a result they continually have to make tough choices about which products stay and go. BlackBerry, Dell, Google, Microsoft and others have all made such decisions this year, so here’s your chance to pay respects to those products and services that aren’t going to make it past 2016…

Windows IE 8, 9 & 10

Microsoft in January alerted customers that it was ending support for its IE 8, 9 & 10 browsers and urged people and organizations to move to IE 11 or Edge, the new default browser for Windows10. IE 8, 9 and 10 will still work, but you really take a security risk by continuing to use them. IE first arrived on the scene in 1995.

Motorola (the brand)

A financially-reeling Motorola split in two in 2011, and while Motorola Solutions continues to serve the telecom industry, Motorola Mobility was snapped up initially by Google in 2012 and then flipped in 2014 to Lenovo, which earlier this year said it was ditching the Motorola brand (though it has managed to linger on).

BlackBerry Classic

Moving ahead with BlackBerry 10 and Android devices, BlackBerry announced in July it would be discontinuing its BlackBerry Classic phones. BlackBerry COO Ralph Pini wrote in a blog post: “It has been an incredible workhorse device for customers, exceeding all expectations. But, the Classic has long surpassed the average lifespan for a smartphone in today’s market. We are ready for this change so we can give our customers something better – entrenched in our legacy in security and pedigree in making the most productive smartphones.”

Facebook Parse

Facebook announced in January that it would be shutting down the mobile back end as a service that it bought in 2013 and that developers have used to hook up hundreds of thousands of apps to the cloud. Parse lives on until Jan. 28, 2017, and the difficult migration process has begun. Facebook itself might face difficulties in the future convincing developers to buy into its new tools.

Firefox OS for smartphones

Mozilla said in February that it will kill development of Firefox OS for mobile devices as of May, upon wrapping up Version 2.6. Though not all will be lost: The OS stack will live on for Smart TVs and various internet of things devices, Mozilla says.

Google Picassa

The 2015 spinout of cloud-based Google Photos (from Google+) for sharing and storing photos and videos marked the beginning of the end for desktop- and web-based Picassa, a photo sharing and storage service that Google bought in 2004 from Lifescape. And yes, the name Picassa is a play-off of artist Pablo Picasso’s name.

AT&T 2G network

With all the talk of moving to 5G wireless in the not-too-distant future, who needs a 2G network anymore? That’s AT&T’s point in pledging to kill off its 2G network by year-end, upgrading what remains to 3G and 4G for now. So, if you have an old device designed for 2G, you’d better upgrade, too.

Dell Android tablets

Dell in June said it is exiting the market for Android tablets, focusing instead on Windows 2-in-1 devices. Going away are the Venue line of Android slate tablets and Wyse Cloud Connect thumb-size computer. Dell says 2-in-1 devices, meanwhile, are gaining ground at enterprises.

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