[Deadmeat]

Sony exits government flat-panel project
Kyoko Suzuki and Naoko Fujimura Bloomberg

Back to Start of Article Sony, the world's No. 2 maker of consumer electronics, on Sunday said it had withdrawn from a government-led liquid-crystal display project after setting up a similar venture with Samsung Electronics of South Korea.

The company left because "the government's initiative for this project is to domestically research and develop technology," said a Sony spokesman, Yoshikazu Ochiai. The company in January 2003 joined the program, which has more than two dozen members, including Tohoku University, according to Ochiai.

The Japanese government asked Sony to withdraw from the project because of a risk of leaking information, the state-run NHK television station reported Sunday.

Sony said in October that it would revamp its television business by entering into a venture with Samsung, the world's second-largest maker of semiconductors, to produce liquid-crystal displays by the first quarter of next year. The combination is intended to give Sony a stronger presence in the market for flat-screen televisions.

Sony and Samsung plan to build a flat-panel factory in South Korea that will be capable of making tens of thousands of panels a year by the summer of 2005.

The venture coincides with decisions by computer companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Gateway to enter the market for products such as slim televisions, digital cameras and portable music players.

Flat-screen TV's, which use either LCD or plasma display panels, are among the best-selling consumer-electronics products for companies including Sharp, Sony and Samsung. Sharp this month said it expected LCD sales to rise 40 percent to ?30 billion, or $6.9 billion, in the year ending March 2005.

Bloomberg News

Japanese government expelling Sony from its advanced display research initiative??? This happaned because Sony didn't have the money to finance its own LCD research and production and decided to outsource to Samsung.

This CELL thing better work good enough to replace Sony's eroding TV set market share...

[zurich]

Deadmeat, this has to do with what? This is so not a topic for the console forum...

I very rarely if ever flame people, but come on..

[Deadmeat]

Actually, this has everything to do with CELL and the choices made by Kutaragi Ken.

1. Sony group is running short on cash and has to focus all its financial resource on single project, CELL in this case.

2. In the process, Sony's future TV set research was sacrificed to keep CELL going and Sony decided to outsource the needed LCD panels from Samsung instead of fabricating them on its own.

3. Sony was considered a risk by Japanese government and was expelled from the Japanese government's advanced display research program.

4. Sony no longer has access to advanced display technology, further eroding its competitiveness in the bread-and-butter TV set business.

Basically, Kutaragi Ken put all his money on CELL. If CELL falters, then Sony group is hit not just in videogame market, but the core TV set market as well(Since Sony's display technology is lagging behind others due to massive CELL investment)

[Paul]

I very rarely if ever flame people, but come on..

That was a flame? Damn.

[Deadmeat]

I already warned about the danger of putting all egg in one basket(CELL) at the expense of traditional bread&butter products, and this fear is being realized at the very moment. Sony's core products are hurting because they do not receive necessary investment on time.

[jvd]

This has nothing to do with consoles . But i warn everyone not to flame . That goes zurich and paul. There was no reason to responed to this thread except to start an arguement .

[Sonic]

Deadmeat, this is your last warning. Stop making threads that are solely meant to bash Sony and CELL. Also, do not make threads that have little relevancy to consoles at all. This is your final warning.