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

[Kumabjorn]

I'm sure you could get at least two, maybe even three, VAIO for one of your birds.

[pphilipp]

Originally Posted by 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.

I am the one who said 'ho-hum'. This is not in regards to their hardware... their hardware has always consistently been right at the top. Sony was actually the one company who helped Japanese products shed their bad reputation. "Made in Japan" was a statement of inferiority until Sony helped elevate it.

Ho-hum simply means that they have taken the well-trodden route of going with an operating system that is established and offered on just about every computer which hits the market. Even cheap pieces of junk merchandise normally come with basically the same OS that Sony puts on their hardware.

I only mention Apple because they see no need to offer an operating system which everyone else offers. They have no need to. They make their own OS which is normally held to be the best there is and is the one which gets routinely copied by their competitor. If Sony did the same, their hardware would be regarded as something in a class by itself.

[Prestidigitweeze]

I beg to differ. The extent to which Sony has offered their own OS, software and built-in restrictions is the degree to which they've lost many loyal customers who still love their hardware. Notice how many times you've seen the phrase on this thread alone:

"I love Sony's hardware, but . . ."

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

............................"I love Sony's hardware, but . . ."

....... I don't care, 'cos I've got my Calibre

[Polyglot27]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sony make DAMNED good digital cameras. Their "Cybershot" range of compact cameras are market leaders. They came to their senses a few years ago and switched their cameras to use SD cards rather than their own "memorystick" format; that was a smart move.

I too switched from Lumix to Sony when they introduced SD card compatibility. I agree that that their panorama function was very well implemented and the quality of pictures taken in low light is just amazing.
However, they simply don't seem to know proper marketing. I bought their PRS-650 ebook on the spot when I saw that they have two Oxford English dictionaries and 5 bilingual ones incorporated; which you can look up just by tapping twice on the word. Is this mentioned anywhere in their ads? This feature alone makes stand alone e-dictionaries made by Franklin and others obsolete. The fact that it was the first Sony ebook which took SD cards was a big plus too.

As for TVs my last one was a Sony Triniton from 1999. When I wanted a new flatscreen which would also let me connect my PC to it, the only brand I found was the Samsung.

They did make some good products and I would be sorry to see them go the way of Kodak, for example.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Polyglot27

However, they simply don't seem to know proper marketing.

They need to hire a guy in a turtle neck sweater and start paying off the more famous bloggers and tech websites. Just like others do.

[fjtorres]

New Sony financials and analysis out:
http://marketday.msnbc.msn.com/_news...7-billion?lite

Sony Corp. racked up a record annual loss of 457 billion yen ($5.7 billion) in its fourth straight year of red ink as the once-glorious maker of the Walkman and PlayStation struggles toward a turnaround under a new president.

The electronics and entertainment company, which also makes "Spider-Man" movies, reported Thursday a loss of 255 billion yen ($3.2 billion) for the January-March period — its fifth straight quarterly net loss to round out a fiscal year that was the worst in its 66-year corporate history.

Sony shares, valued at around $15 billion or just 3 percent of rival Apple Inc, this week slipped to a quarter century low.

Quarterly sales inched up 1.2 percent on-year to 1.6 trillion yen ($20 billion). Annual sales plunged nearly 10 percent to 6.5 trillion yen ($81 billion).

They are, if nothing, consistent:

Sony has bled money for eight straight years in its core TV business, bashed by competition from Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea and other Asian rivals.

"In handsets, without big innovations, Sony will still be a second-tier smartphone market player," SR Kwon, an industry analyst at Dongbu Securities in Seoul, told Reuters. "Will Sony get much better as time goes by? I'm not that optimistic. Currency is not the only problem, the bigger problem is that Sony has failed to catch up with consumer trends in TVs and handsets."

Sony also sees an 11 percent decline in sales this year of its PlayStation games console, to 16 million.

They do have a bit of good news coming: they have a new Spider-Man movie coming in a few months. Of course, it *is* a reboot under a whole new team and new cast...

[Polyglot27]

I forgot to mention this in my previous post. Sony has a fantastic MP3 player, the NWZ-A844 8GB (and the A845 16GB). It has two inbuilt functions which no other players has: A very good noise cancelling function and a language learning function. The NC function is as good as or even better than other stand alone noise-cancelling earphones costing more, I've used it on trains and planes and they really work. The language function allows you to make it repeat the last phrase just by pressing the down botton. It also lets you to easily set A and B points on a recording to make it repeat in a loop over and over.

They have never emphasized these points and I found out only by accident when I was trying out various MP3 players in a shop.

I just discovered that they have stopped production of this model. Their new models do not have either one of these functions. Some shops still have this model in stock and at a reduced price, so get it now if you think it is useful for you. I myself got another one, just in case the first one breaks down.

Talk about new models not being as good the the old ones.

[Kumabjorn]

Well, isn't tha just kind of symptomatic for Sony? When they do have a product that has distinct features that other maker's don't have then they cancel those features.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Well, isn't tha just kind of symptomatic for Sony? When they do have a product that has distinct features that other maker's don't have then they cancel those features.

Pretty much.
Deleting useful features is the flip side of emphasizing useless ones.
If nothing else, it tells you they really don't know what consumers use or value.

[Salgueiros]

I also have a Noise cancelling Sony mp3 player and that is the best additional function i have seen in a player. And you are right it does seem to work better than in a stand alone NC headphone. I never quite understand why Sony did not made this a marketing tool to show it was superior to Apple products. I always showed the function to my friends and they were unanimous in saying that they wish their mp3 players had that. Why does Sony does not "brag" as much as other companies about their strengths? And most incomprehensible, why do the new models dont have NC? It baffles me, for sure.

[SeaKing]

Pride and arrogance always lead to downfall.

That is Sony's story. Their past was glorious, but time seems to have passed them by.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

Why does Sony does not "brag" as much as other companies about their strengths?

Sony *does* brag... about what they *think* are their strengths.

For the PS3, for example, they spent years bragging about its BluRay drive, its Cell processor, its ability to cure cancer, find ET, run LINUX... lots of things. They *didn't* much brag about its games.

PS3 launch promo campaign: http://img.qj.net//uploads/articles_...wth.jpg?275546

Their rear projection HDTVs came with 30 features devoted to making SD content look "better" but offered no way to disable overscan to let HD content look its best.

Sony does plenty of marketting; they don't, however, do much market research.
A common failing.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

S
Sony does plenty of marketting; they don't, however, do much market research.
A common failing.

The main reason why companies run by engineers usually fail in the long run. They build what they think is best, not what the customers want. The best products won't keep you afloat if you can't sell enough. I have seen it happen over and over again. Irex is another example.

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Sony *does* brag... about what they *think* are their strengths.

For the PS3, for example, they spent years bragging about its BluRay drive, its Cell processor, its ability to cure cancer, find ET, run LINUX... lots of things. They *didn't* much brag about its games.

Well, to be fair, that's because they don't have much to brag about.

Sony's own software is largely forgettable (and doesn't sell much). The only big series they have is Uncharted, and that pales in comparison to the likes of Halo or Gears of War.

Gran Turismo is still pretty big, but the long development time of GT5 made it a non-factor. By the time it came out, there were already two Forzas on the 360