How the Tech Parade Passed Sony By - ?the end of Sony eReaders, the end of Sony?

[Anabana]

IBM managed an amazing come-back considering their stock prices. Anything is possible with Sony if they get the right leadership and incentives.... Although, an article from Communications Nation (08 Feb 2011) had the following:

"... John Hagel pointed out that the average life expectancy of a company in the S&P 500 has dropped precipitously, from 75 years (in 1937) to 15 years in a more recent study. ..."
So maybe their time is up - ? Kodak had a phenomenal 131 years ...

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by Anabana

IBM managed an amazing come-back considering their stock prices. Anything is possible with Sony if they get the right leadership and incentives.... Although, an article from Communications Nation (08 Feb 2011) had the following:

"... John Hagel pointed out that the average life expectancy of a company in the S&P 500 has dropped precipitously, from 75 years (in 1937) to 15 years in a more recent study. ..."
So maybe their time is up - ? Kodak had a phenomenal 131 years ...

That is really interesting and amazing Anabana.
When my Karma resets, you will get a big jolt!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by caleb72

I think it would be a shame if Sony disappeared from the ereader market. When I wanted to buy an ereader I went for Kindle because Sony's equivalent was way too expensive in comparison...but I did like that Sony device.

Their latest device also looks very nice. However, again at a price higher than the equivalent Amazon/Kobo device for me. Of course, by now I have brand intertia so it would actually require something specific to get me to change horses.

The Kindle Touch without adverts is $139. The T1 with no sale/discount is $129. The equivalent Kindle is more expensive. The Kobo has bugs/quirks that I would not want to have to put up with.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

A friend of mine purchased a Sony laptop a couple of years ago. I have never in my life seen a computer with more built-in: spam, spyware, malware, trialware, bloatware, etc. It was so bad that a format and re-installation of the OS was the only fix. The boot time went from 7+ minutes to about 1 minute after the rebuild...

Sony wasn't the only ones back then to load a laptop full of crap.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sony wasn't the only ones back then to load a laptop full of crap.

Maybe not, but they were one of the worst offenders. I remember i wanted to buy a new shiny super light-weight VAIO at a Yodobashi Kamera in Tokyo. I asked for a demonstration and since it was brand new, the salesman unpacked it from the box and turned it on. After booting up the first thing it asked was if I wanted a NIFTY or a PC-Van account (sort of precursors to the Internet in Japan). I said I already had a PC-Van account so let's skip that. Couldn't do it. The sales clerk was on the phone four times to Sony CS (the special one for retailers) and finally they admitted that they hadn't considered that a user already might have an account. I would need to set up a new account in order to proceed.
I said, "I need to get something else than a Sony". The salesman nodded understandingly (realize that this never happens in Japan, they will not give up on making you a happy customer), but unfortunately no other maker had anything even close to the VAIO in those days.

[pphilipp]

Interesting forum. I've owned numerous Sony products for about forty years... several TVs, VCRs, tape decks, audio, etc. But I've never owned a Sony computer. In the electronics world Sony is one of the biggest, best innovators to ever step into the arena, but when it comes to their computers, they have only been 'ho-hum' at best. if they had taken the Apple route and offered a completely different alternative to mainstream Windows, something no one else offered, perhaps we would have taken notice. But they took the cautious well travelled road, and it's easy to see why.

Too many times Sony released high quality products that consumers skirted over. We often went with inferior specs on a cheaper, lessor competitor. Again, unlike Apple, Sony consistently demonstrated that they did not know how to market. Many times they had the best product out there but they didn't know how to convey that to consumers. I believe Sony got to the point they were afraid to innovate.

[HarryT]

I've had a few Sony Vaio laptops over the years, and been very happy with them. No complaints at all.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sony wasn't the only ones back then to load a laptop full of crap.

Alas, they were the only ones to *charge* $50 to remove it.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1132633/bloadtware.html

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Anabana

IBM managed an amazing come-back considering their stock prices.

Indeed.
The way they did it was to reinvent themselves as a Technology Services company instead of a Computer company.
IBM has done that no less than three times now; they started out as a punchcard/tabulating machine company, became an office equipment company, then a computer company, and are now primarily an IT services provider. Smart managers transform their companies just *before* they hit a crisis.

Sony started out as a consumer electronics company and added all sorts of subsidiaries (chemicals, semiconductors, media, content, etc) but they still think and act like a hardware manufacturer at heart. And they still think "features!" instead of "value!".

Specsheet engineering just doesn't get you too far these days. Especially if the customers don't see the value in the features you choose to focus on. That is Sony's problem in gaming, in ebook readers, and *especially* TVs. It isn't that they don't put in enough features, but rather that the features they focus on don't matter to consumers.

Sony TVs simply don't have anything to sell them except the brand and their (now-tarnished) past reputation. There is a reason that a lot of the financial types think they need to stop wasting money on TVs and get out. Because the boom of HDTV adoption in North America is just about over. Easy sales are over. If Sony couldn't make money when sales were easy...

IBM knew they had to evolve to survive and that evolution meant getting out of Keyboards and printers (Lexmark) and selling off the commodity PC business (to Lenovo) so they could transform themselves into a new healthy company.

Sony needs to do the same; figure out what they want to be next and become it. Fast. Their resources are vast but not infinite. And their annual losses, they are big, big, big...

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sony wasn't the only ones back then to load a laptop full of crap.

Nothing has changed., The amount of bloatware masquerading as helper apps installed on name brand notebooks is astounding. Toshiba, Dell, HP, Sony, all the same.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Nothing has changed., The amount of bloatware masquerading as helper apps installed on name brand notebooks is astounding. Toshiba, Dell, HP, Sony, all the same.

That's good to know. I'm glad that I would rather pay a bit more money for a pc from a locally bought store that makes the pc's & only puts Windows OS system on them.

Not to mention that the name brand pc's are usually stocked with hardware that is very specific to the brand & won't easily take a different piece of hardware if you want to switch something out.

It's worth it to me to spend that extra money to have that kind of flexibility.

[Penforhire]

You can't really say Sony's PC's are just ho-hum. For years now, if you want a small-but-very-powerful laptop the high-end VAIO's are unmatched (processor + screen resolution + video card in a tiny package). They are also unmatched for price, lol, being significantly more expensive than Apple. But if you want more than a MacBook Air or the current crop of Ultrabooks, the VAIO line is worth a look.

[no.guru]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Nothing has changed., The amount of bloatware masquerading as helper apps installed on name brand notebooks is astounding. Toshiba, Dell, HP, Sony, all the same.

You can also download ISOs for Windows 7 and Windows 8 when it's released. Just be sure you get the correct version that came with your computer and that you have your product key.

I did this on my laptop. It gives you an absolutely clean copy of Windows 7 that has only what you install on it. No promo apps with dozens of small icons on the taskbar.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by no.guru

You can also download ISOs for Windows 7 and Windows 8 when it's released. Just be sure you get the correct version that came with your computer and that you have your product key.

I did this on my laptop. It gives you an absolutely clean copy of Windows 7 that has only what you install on it. No promo apps with dozens of small icons on the taskbar.

Problem is that you then have to hunt for the right drivers for all your hardware. If they are on a virtual disc on your HD (as HP does it), you're still looking at a few hours of "installation fun" to finish the job, including downloads for updates, etc.

We don't get paid to have all this useless stuff on our computers, so they shouldn't be doing it, period. Now if they did it like Amazon, "Vaio with special offers" (and a reduced price, of course), then it would be another story.

[fjtorres]

From CNET:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-57...col;topStories

Stuck on incremental, not disruptive innovation: the Japanese flavor of capitalism is averse to small companies with product-category demolishing ideas like iPhones and iPads (remember Apple was a lot smaller before the iPhone) -- or, to go further back in time, the original Apple Macintosh, the Compaq PC, or new distribution models like Dell's. Japan's form of capitalism favors incremental tech improvements that trickle out of vertically integrated companies. Even today.