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Old 04-18-2012, 08:28 AM   #46
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Companies try to expand too much without trying to focus on a few damn good products. Google is going the same way. Every week they have some new product. They have corporate ADD.
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Old 04-18-2012, 08:49 AM   #47
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Well, I just purchased a Sony Bravia 55" smart TV with 3D. Sony still make arguably the best flat screen TV's currently.
It's fairly easy to argue that they don't make the best flat screen.

(a) The three companies with the highest consumer satisfaction are Panasonic, LG and Samsung.

(b) Samsung, LG and Vizio control around 80% of the market.

(c) Sony uses Samsung's factories to produce their tvs using Samsung tech. And at CES they demonstrated that they were incapable of true innovation because they could not make a large screen oled and instead debuted an inorganic led. Pitiful.

(d) Sony has a long history of coming up with great ideas for new tv tech, but never following through. Were technologies like fed just a pipe dream?

Now Sony might offer excellent picture quality and features on their tvs, but they are far from the best flat screen manufacturer. In fact as I've just argued they are clearly second tier.

This story repeats across everything which is why Sony is no longer a leader. Their ereaders are not competitive with the kindle or nook. Their tablets are a joke compared to Apple, Samsung, etc Their game console finished the race last and was long considered overpriced. Even their blu-ray players don't command the market. Their mp3 players simply don't compete with any ipod.

And across the board Sony does not make durable, lasting electronics anymore, and they have relatively low customer satisfaction. Coupled with what another poster mentioned-- the lack of integration with app stores and across devices means that they desperately need to reinvent themselves.
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Old 04-18-2012, 09:14 AM   #48
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I just bought Sony's new Jack-White-themed LCD bikini for my girlfriend. To our dismay, she appears naked in every fourth photograph taken, and at all unauthorized beaches we happen to visit. The bikini is also incredibly difficult to remove.

Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 04-18-2012 at 02:41 PM.
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Old 04-18-2012, 12:50 PM   #49
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A very US centric view at things.
While the Kindle is ahead in most markets promoted by Amazon as the prime online bookseller the Nook doesn't exist on the international markets and the Kobo reader is neither significantly cheaper nor does it offer any discernible advantages.
I don't see the supposed premium Sony prices either. Their TV prices are very competitve with those offered by Samsung here in Germany. As my Samsung TV developed major faults only 2 1/2 years after purchase I am certainly not going to buy another one when I am going to replace the current set.
I am also delighted by what Sony has done to Minolta's DSLR unit that they bought a couple of years back. Their new cameras are bold, innovative and very competitive with anything offered by the other major companies.
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Old 04-18-2012, 12:57 PM   #50
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I am also delighted by what Sony has done to Minolta's DSLR unit that they bought a couple of years back. Their new cameras are bold, innovative and very competitive with anything offered by the other major companies.
Yes, I commented in an earlier post that cameras are one thing that Sony does very well indeed.
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Old 04-18-2012, 01:20 PM   #51
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A very US centric view at things.
Perhaps.

But none of the reports on Sony's travails depicts them as regional, but as global. If their troubles were US-based only, they could do as Philips did and withdraw to markets where their lineup is better received. All the available evidence is that Sony losses are global and the competitors beating them like a drum (Apple, Microsoft, Sharp, Samsung, LG, etc) include the major global players, not just the local specialists (Vizio, Nook, etc). And they are beating them globally. They really *are* at the bottom of the (name brand) Consumer Electronics pecking order in most categories.

Sony's inability to compete in the US isn't a cause of their problems but a *result* of their problems; of their reliance on brand loyalty instead of market research, of ignoring clear market trends, of neglecting shifting customer needs and preferences.

Whatever income brand loyalty might bring them in those markets (if any) where their pricing is not perceived as out of line with their product quality is not doing much to close the gap of red ink. If anything, their global losses are increasing year by year.

Sony has not bottomed out yet.
Things can and *will* get worse before they can start to get better.
Again: Sony is not going to disappear overnight. But their struggle to relevance and profitability is going to be a long one and will likely take the rest of the decade.

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Old 04-18-2012, 01:43 PM   #52
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"Sony is still in the game."

“We don’t believe in walled gardens. We believe in an open format, the EPUB format, so that all our content can be read on future devices. It’s very important for our customers. We believe in giving people open access to our Reader store with different hardware from different manufacturers.”

Sony is strategically positioning themselves for the long-term in ebooks. The others can have their proprietary formats on their proprietary devices - at least as long as their corporate friends say they can.
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Old 04-18-2012, 02:06 PM   #53
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Sony is strategically positioning themselves for the long-term in ebooks. The others can have their proprietary formats on their proprietary devices - at least as long as their corporate friends say they can.
Oh, is Sony going DRM free in their european store?

Cause, last I heard, Adobe DRM is *still* proprietary. Adobe still controls if a book will or not open on your gadget or reading app.
Lock in to Adobe is not terribly different than lock-in to Amazon, B&N, or Apple.

The only fully open and transportable way to get ebooks is DRM-free.
The rest is just fiddling on the margins.
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Old 04-18-2012, 04:03 PM   #54
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I hope this isn't too off topic: I absolutely refuse to purchase ANY Sony product ever again after that fiasco with their gaming console and actually suing people over "modding". Seriously, I hope they go out of business today!
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Old 04-18-2012, 05:25 PM   #55
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Oh, is Sony going DRM free in their european store?

Cause, last I heard, Adobe DRM is *still* proprietary. Adobe still controls if a book will or not open on your gadget or reading app.
Lock in to Adobe is not terribly different than lock-in to Amazon, B&N, or Apple.

The only fully open and transportable way to get ebooks is DRM-free.
The rest is just fiddling on the margins.
Agreed, and it is much easier for me to do this and keep my library long-term with a Sony device than the alternatives.

There's no need for yet another Coke-vs-Pepsi thread, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Just wanted to point out that for those of us with Sony devices, doom and gloom isn't necessarily warranted. For example, between the time I bought the 505 and the T-1, Sony changed from their proprietary LRF format to EPUB. That's progress and reason for optimism IMO.

I'm not interested in restricting my purchases based on the presence or absence of DRM.

Truly free would be nice, sure, and so would free as in free beer, as long as I'm wishing.

With Sony's readers I can use the industry standard EPUB format and easily strip DRM from purchased materials. That's preferable to me compared to a proprietary format that may or may not exist in the future. And, no, once I've stripped DRM neither Adobe nor Sony controls anything about it.

Sony goes out of the ebook business, oh well, I will load my library to a new device when needed. If I was in another ecosystem that pretends EPUB doesn't exist, I'd be lucky to find a device that would read them, particularly over time.

There's much discussion of how Sony will be changing given the recent news. I see this statement from them as reason for optimism. Of course, they could still abandon their ebook business, but that's true for any organization.
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Old 04-18-2012, 05:41 PM   #56
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I hope this isn't too off topic: I absolutely refuse to purchase ANY Sony product ever again after that fiasco with their gaming console and actually suing people over "modding". Seriously, I hope they go out of business today!
Who did they sue? The customers? The people providing mods or instructions for same?
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Old 04-18-2012, 07:39 PM   #57
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Who did they sue? The customers? The people providing mods or instructions for same?
What happened was the PS3 was originally promoted as an "entertainment computer" that hackers could program for. Over time, Sony removed the ability to boot alternate Operating Systems and run homebrew software. To prevent piracy. (of course!)
Within months, the encryption was cracked and they sued.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...s-ps3-lawsuit/

http://www.ehow.com/info_10069945_ps...-used-for.html

Other hackers (anonymous, Lulzsec, etc) got ticked and decided to "retaliate" by cracking pretty much all Sony networks and stealing user data and generally raising heck all over. It cost Sony a lot of bad publicity and even more money for the way they mis-handled the whole affair.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/22612...rk_hacked.html

The whole mess lasted over a month.
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Old 04-18-2012, 07:43 PM   #58
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I just bought Sony's new Jack-White-themed LCD bikini for my girlfriend. To our dismay, she appears naked in every fourth photograph taken, and at all unauthorized beaches we happen to visit. The bikini is also incredibly difficult to remove.
Could you please tell us which beaches you frequent?
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Old 04-18-2012, 07:45 PM   #59
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I hope this isn't too off topic: I absolutely refuse to purchase ANY Sony product ever again after that fiasco with their gaming console and actually suing people over "modding". Seriously, I hope they go out of business today!
Yes, that was pretty bad PR.
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Old 04-18-2012, 07:48 PM   #60
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It cost Sony a lot of bad publicity and even more money for the way they mis-handled the whole affair.

The whole mess lasted over a month.
They have previous, right back to the rootkit fiasco and proprietary peripheral formats. And the bad feeling and refusal to buy Sony is going to last a lot longer than a month.
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