Pound for Pound
Sony used to be the big hitter in the industy, when you wanted to buy a TV or an MP3 player, a radio or a CD player, a laptop. There was always a large amount of choice out there you had Sony as the high quality grand dady in whatever it touched, and then you had a load of cheaper alternatives which were clearly less sufficient when it came to quality. But the times have changed.
We've gotten to a point where the quality gap between the top of the line, and the mid range isn't so big that it's worth an extra 40% on top of the price. Why buy the sony laptop for £1000 when the mac is the same price and another similar dell *shudder* laptop has similar specs for half the price?
Why spend £600 on a sony phone when you can spend £500 on the new samsung S4?
Sony need to work out which markets it's still wanted in and back out of the rest. In my mind Sony has always been good at the audio visual side of things. Keep TV, music, mp3 and phones, but they need to back out of dying markets like laptops and tablets. Right now it just isn't worth their investment.
I'd also argue that they need to focus their product range more. We don't need 10 different top of the range TVs, we only need one or two of each size category. If they cut down the number of modesl they coudl focus production on the fewer different configurations, save money, lower the price of their sets and in turn get a higher turnover.
The same goes with mobile and camears.
As an additional point, sony is in a unique situation with the products it makes. They could potentially create a large amount of synergy across their platforms. Playstation console linked to playstation mobiles which can beused to control Playstation TVs which can seemlessly link with Playstation Cameras. (okay they wouldn't all be branded playstation but still)
Sonys playstation phone was actually a neat little venture ,but it failed because it was overpriced and underspecced. If they made another attempt of it, or hell. If they released a 'playstation store' app where people could code for android or windows phone using their architecture, they could release a new playstation phone with better spec / lower price. Or even a decent controller adapter for their sony line of phones. Give up on Vita after this generation and focus on mobile gaming.
I mean hell, who's going to spend £200 on a Vita, when they can get a decent smartphone for the same price, and the games cost a fraction of the amount.
In summary
Scrap PCs Laptops and tablets.
Streamline the range of products offered
Synergise TVs with mobiles and the playstation console
Make another attempt at the playstation phone, but this time with decent specs and pricepoint OR release a phone <>game controller adapater.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
