Yesterday, Logitech hosted an Analyst and Investor Day and during his remarks, CEO Guerrino De Luca pulled absolutely no punches in describing the "mistakes" the company made with its Logitech Revue Google TV set top box. Calling the company's Christmas 2010 launch "a mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature," De Luca told investors that the company had "brought closure to the Logitech Revue saga" by making plans to let inventory run out this quarter and that there are "no plans to introduce another box to replace Revue."

De Luca suggested that Google TV was far from ready at launch, going so far as to call it "beta" software on one presentation slide, and that the company made a massive misstep by believing that it would revolutionize television right out of the gate. In short, Logitech "executed a full scale launch with a beta product and it cost us dearly." He added more color about Logitech's failure to read the television market in his remarks:

To make the long story short, we thought we had invented [sliced] bread and we just made them. [We made a commitment to] just build a lot because we expected everybody to line up for Christmas and buy these boxes [at] $300 [...] that was a big mistake.

The mistake, plus "operational miscues in EMEA" cost the company "well over $100M in operating profits." De Luca did throw Google a bone by saying that he believes Google TV will have a chance sometime in the future, but it would be a "grandchild of Google TV" that would do it. Logitech clearly has no plans to help make that happen, opting instead to sit "on the bench" (as De Luca had put it in an earlier call) until Google can find success.

To achieve that, Google will need to do something soon to revitalize Google TV, which is not expected to see much in the way of future Flash support and may not figure heavily in Sony's future television plans either. The 3.1 update may have added app support, but it's going to take a bit more than that to make companies like Logitech take a second look.