Quote:
Originally Posted by poohbear_nc
Unbelievable! This is the company that gave us the Walkman? Now giving us last year's ereader at this year's price? When you can get a non-front lit Kindle for $69? Words fail me ....
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They use to own the mobile music market. Then they got quashed by the ipod.
For two generations they dominated the console market, selling more than their competitors combined. The last generation they were knocked off by Nintendo and after seven years have finally surpassed Microsoft in marketshare.
They use to dominate monitors and televisions. Now those departments hemmorage money.
They were the first to bring eink to the market. Now they are losing to Amazon in their own home market.
With music, they failed to take advantage of the digital wave. Apple capitalized on the fears that digital piracy would destroy the music industry be creating an ecosystem and model that allowed you to download individual songs to your device for only $.99, encouraging people to start buying music again. The Sony Walkman flourished on the music industry's consumer unfriendly model of producing CD's with only one or two good songs on them. Sony failed to ride the digital wave and provide a user friendly experience for music consumers.
With consoles, they overestimated the value people placed on great hardware and put out a device that was much more expensive than the competition.
I don't know really what happened with monitors and televisions, other than that two decades of deflationary conditions have made it difficult for Japanese manufacturers to compete with Korean manufacturers.
Ereading has some similarities to their fall in music. They produced good hardware, but failed to account for the content side of ereading. Not only did they not provide a quick and easy way to get books on the device, but they failed to negotiate prices down. Before the Kindle, most ebooks were a lot more expensive than their paper counterparts. Sony seemed content with dominating a tiny market rather than growing that market. Amazon came around and offered bestsellers for $9.99 in 60 seconds or less, downloadable right from your device. The rest is history. Now Sony aint even producing the best hardware, and they are charging more than their competitors.
