Re: Sad
Spot on...
Japanese electronics stalwart Sony has posted a preliminary net income loss of ¥130 billion ($1.3bn, £770m) for the year to March 31, 2014 – its third downward revision in less than 12 months, and another blow to CEO Kazuo Hirai’s attempts to turn the company around. The figure [PDF] was significantly worse than the ¥110bn (£ …
So sad to see...I agree that the media arm strangled Sony so much over the past few decades, forcing proprietary formats at every juncture. That's one problem.
The other problem is that at their heart Sony are a premium engineering company, their hardware is incredible...but other equipment is sadly 'good enough' now. iPhones are, comparatively, pretty poor media players (the a/d chips and other circuitry isn't really that good), compared to, for example, the X-Series Walkman I had a few years ago. by comparison, the iKit sounds abysmal. Thing is, no one cares anymore, it's all about overall value and software over simply good quality hardware and you can only really tell the quality in A-B tests. Hardly something to shift units (well it worked for me but I am, apparently, odd).
Oh well, I'll always have fond memories of the top-notch Walkman I saved up for as a teenager!
Instead of purging the upper echelon that is management and the decision makers they will probably lay off a bunch of workers and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Let's hope they make the right choices from here on out and turn this thing around. I'm seriously considering the PS4 for my next console but not if the company goes tits up.
You can't really purge the upper layers in a company this big. Part of the problem is that the guy at the top only has the illusion of control, not actual control. When a company this size goes bad there's only one possible way to revitalize it, and even then it's very iffy: split the corporation into a number of smaller parts aligned with the divisions in the current company. Then let the split companies resize and revitalize their markets. Even at that, each split company has at best a 50:50 shot at survival.
One side used to make fantastic innovative and high quality electronic consumer goods. Which were excellent at copying things. Sounds onto tape. Tape into sound. TV signals into pictures.
The other side tried to make a business out of media and copyright and wanted to stop the other side of the business making it easy to copy content easily or perfectly.
The solution - split Sony into 2 companies where one side isn't trying to sabotage the other.
Old Sony:
Trinitron tubes - best in the biz, everybody wanted one, both for TVs and computer monitors
Walkman - pioneering entry into miniaturization and using surface mount in consumer products, when everything else was big and clunky...they really led the consumer miniaturization trend
Video - top notch consumer and semi-pro camcorders
Recent Sony -
Memory sticks - offered nothing over competing technologies except lock in and a higher price
Music CDs - with a complementary rootkit installer included!
Free software add-ons - another rootkit delivery vehicle (in some free to download Spore game tool)
Securom - worlds worst game CD copy protection scheme; main benefit was making sure my kids legally purchased games would no longer work after any hardware or OS upgrades, costing too much of my time to try to make them happy again
Water resistant cameras, tablets - great idea, except when they aren't really water resistant, oops
Is it any wonder why they're doing so poorly?
At least they still know how to make decent ear buds and headphones...
Sony are their own worst enemy.
They prioritize DRM above customer satisfaction.
They destroyed their own invention - mini disc - with DRM.
They installed root-kits on their customers machines because of DRM.
They cannot be trusted because of DRM.
I have been totally boycotting Sony since the disappointment and aggravation i got from their NetMD.
It may already be too late - but if it is not, they need to forget DRM and start prioritizing their customers.
All their proprietary connectors/cables and flash cards. If only they had adopted a more consumer friendly open standards policy 10 years ago they'd still be the Sony of today. Not Samsung. Their ATRAC format was also a killer bust.
Pioneering new optical standards is one thing but simple connectivity, flash cards and loathsome DRM is another.