Sony is bleeding money - business strategy discussion

[mrcorbo]

It can be a factor in Brand value and Brand quality, but as i mentioned earlier, Sony is in a different TV market with flat panel TV´s then they were with CRT. They have a strong Yen and fierce competition so why shouldn´t they suffer from all those factors? I was suggesting that the Brand value might have been and still is a factor that reduce the damage from all those factors.

For your father it´s sony, for me it´s denon with no emperical evidence except money wasted

BLASPHEMER!

Seriously, though, I have had the exact opposite experience. The 3 Denon receivers (and 1 car head unit) I have owned are among the best purchasing choices I have ever made. And all of them have worked and still work with zero problems despite, in some cases, years of heavy use.

 

[zed]

I'm not eager to hunt for someone else's argument, if you want to present it, feel free.

from the harris poll (wiki them)

OK I think thats overall, and its from 2007 (I cant seem to easily find a recent one), it looks like theyve split up into various categories now

eg consumer electronics 2011, sony is still the number 1 electronic brand in the US, above samsung (true it doesnt sell the most, due to price,availability and other reasons)

 

[boommoob1]

I remember reading that, a few years ago, there is (was ?) a camp of Sony execs and board member(s) who fought to keep the TV business intact. Stringer couldn't take his knife to it.

Mobile device ? They are already doing too much: S1, S2, Xperia Phone, Vita, Vaio. ^_^

They're not doing to much. Pretty standard product lineup for an electronics company like Sony . Xperia play is another Hirai flop. I get the vibe Hirai's distancing himself from Vita etc to take ownership of the TV problem before the problem's start for Vita etc. In Stringers world Hirai reducing losses in TV will legitimise him to lead Sony and yet more years of Sony decline. We shall see.

 

[patsu]

I don't know man. They seem to have their fingers on every device category when they need to focus their resources better. I left out eReader above too.

Sony's TV business will be difficult to change. It seems to have a lot of legacy baggages.

Hirai has always been behind the scene, cutting PS3 manufacturing cost, drumming up Qriocity. If he can fix Sony's TV business, it would mean Sony will lose (much) less money in the next year. He's leading the Network business, so PSN (or Sony Online) will also be his primary focus/measurement.

 

[AntShaw]

Sony's TV business will be difficult to change. It seems to have a lot of legacy baggages.

I just want to highlight this quote because you are 100% spot on. AND this is the reasons the once big and might industries and companies are beginning to fail in this modern age. They are stuck on legacy business models and have no means to adopt to this new era. When you keep trying to bang a square peg through a round hole, it doesn't matter how hard you bang. Until Sony and many other companies and industries can begin to abandon these legacy products and business models, they will continue to slough of precious monies.

 

[boommoob1]

I don't know man. They seem to have their fingers on every device category when they need to focus their resources better. I left out eReader above too.

Sony's TV business will be difficult to change. It seems to have a lot of legacy baggages.

Hirai has always been behind the scene, cutting PS3 manufacturing cost, drumming up Qriocity. If he can fix Sony's TV business, it would mean Sony will lose (much) less money in the next year. He's leading the Network business, so PSN (or Sony Online) will also be his primary focus/measurement.

Sony have less product lines than they had 15 years ago. Sony dont lack resources just vision. Where has Stringer been for 6 years?. They are a listless ship and will be under Hirai. Sony SHOULD sack Stringer , Hirai and reemploy the large number of dissidents Stringer threw overboard and sell the myriad of media companies Stringer's been collecting. Stringer, Hirai are a fish out of water.

 

[RudeCurve]

They should bring Ken Kutaragi back...

 

[wco81]

I'd rather have Kutaragi guide the design than Hirai or Stringer.

 

[boommoob1]

They should bring Ken Kutaragi back...

Kuturagi=hit products, big profits. Stringer/Hirai=one Sony disaster/calamity after another. You've got a tv exec and a music exec running Sony electronics!.

 

[patsu]

Kuturagi=hit products, big profits. Stringer/Hirai=one Sony disaster/calamity after another. You've got a tv exec and a music exec running Sony electronics!.

Hirai is a marketing dude, not a TV exec. ^_^

According to here, he was never in the electronics business until now. I agree he has a lot of his plate though. May be hard to focus.

Kutaragi's style is more bold and "simple" in concept, which may be more effective for cutting through noise and inertia.

 

[wco81]

Kutaragi had a vision.

Does Kaz or Stringer? They seem like loyal bureaucrats promoted for having been around a long time.

 

[boommoob1]

Hirai is a marketing dude, not a TV exec. ^_^

According to here, he was never in the electronics business until now. I agree he has a lot of his plate though. May be hard to focus.

Kutaragi's style is more bold and "simple" in concept, which may be more effective for cutting through noise and inertia.

Wasnt Kaz a music exec?. The leader of Sony has to be an Electronics guy. 8 years of losses in tv, where was Stringer?. Problems at Sony Ericsson etc etc. Responses to Apples rise? Nothing, nothing at all. Zero hit products under his watch. Could go on all day. The tv exec is now again upto his old tricks trying to spend $3-4billion on another music company, why? . He's been a strategic disaster for Sony. Sonys problems are internal not Apple or Samsung and once they get qualified people back in the boardroom things will right themselves. Kuturagi would get them functioning normally again at worst.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why believe in Kutaragi though? He was an engineer, not a businessman. PS3 was an extraordinarily expensive venture that has lost Sony billions, and Cell got nowhere, and he didn't manage to make a much headway when he was placed in charge of the consumer division. Two successes doesn't make KK the golden child, and a visionary can be dangerous if they follow their vision is wrong. Personally I'd like to see a Sony with Kutaragi heading it because it'd produce awesome tech, but I doubt it'd last any longer than any other Sony, because he'd create tech for tech's sake and ignore what it's like for the users and developers. Sony needs someone with balance who'd marry the two sides, providing a content service on a Sony platform. To be fair, the recent moves by Sony are right - Qriocity and whatnot offering a single unified platform for content on all device is the right sort of future, but I dare say it's too little too late. There's way too much strong competition now to win out just on electronic tech. Apple got where they did because they combined tech with the experience.

 

[boommoob1]

Stringer became CEO in 2005. Stringer, Kuturagi were at war. Who forced Blu-ray on PS3 despite escape routes being available, SCEI? nah.. The XMB on PS3 suggested Kuturagi knew exactly where things were heading. 2005 Kuturagi PS3 is a multimedia box. 2007 Hirai PS3 is a games console. What capital expenditure did Stringer cut in regards PS3?.

 

[NavNucST3]

Why believe in Kutaragi though? He was an engineer, not a businessman. PS3 was an extraordinarily expensive venture that has lost Sony billions, and Cell got nowhere, and he didn't manage to make a much headway when he was placed in charge of the consumer division. Two successes doesn't make KK the golden child, and a visionary can be dangerous if they follow their vision is wrong. Personally I'd like to see a Sony with Kutaragi heading it because it'd produce awesome tech, but I doubt it'd last any longer than any other Sony, because he'd create tech for tech's sake and ignore what it's like for the users and developers. Sony needs someone with balance who'd marry the two sides, providing a content service on a Sony platform. To be fair, the recent moves by Sony are right - Qriocity and whatnot offering a single unified platform for content on all device is the right sort of future, but I dare say it's too little too late. There's way too much strong competition now to win out just on electronic tech. Apple got where they did because they combined tech with the experience.

I would be happy with a Sony where NONE of their firmware or other embedded OS and UI/UX were produced in Japan. I have most of my Apple products not because the hardware tech is some amazing thing but because the software makes the hardware seem "amazing".

 

[wco81]

A few years back they supposedly hired a guy from Apple to lead their software efforts. Sounds like their software hasn't really changed?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I just bought an HDR-CX130E with inbuilt browser software that fires up when attached via USB. It takes 5 minutes to load up the contents of the camcorder, with no loading page or anything. It's useless tripe, and support seemed to think 5 minutes of a blank page was a perfectly acceptable user experience. The contents load as they should nigh instantly when accessed as a USB drive.

 

[NavNucST3]

I just bought an HDR-CX130E with inbuilt browser software that fires up when attached via USB. It takes 5 minutes to load up the contents of the camcorder, with no loading page or anything. It's useless tripe, and support seemed to think 5 minutes of a blank page was a perfectly acceptable user experience. The contents load as they should nigh instantly when accessed as a USB drive.

I'm trying to hard not to launch into one of my j-dev code is the [insert expletive(s)] code I have ever seen in my life. Think, ShootMyMonkey "Creature" awful.

 

[msia2k75]

Why believe in Kutaragi though? He was an engineer, not a businessman. PS3 was an extraordinarily expensive venture that has lost Sony billions, and Cell got nowhere, and he didn't manage to make a much headway when he was placed in charge of the consumer division. Two successes doesn't make KK the golden child, and a visionary can be dangerous if they follow their vision is wrong. Personally I'd like to see a Sony with Kutaragi heading it because it'd produce awesome tech, but I doubt it'd last any longer than any other Sony, because he'd create tech for tech's sake and ignore what it's like for the users and developers. Sony needs someone with balance who'd marry the two sides, providing a content service on a Sony platform. To be fair, the recent moves by Sony are right - Qriocity and whatnot offering a single unified platform for content on all device is the right sort of future, but I dare say it's too little too late. There's way too much strong competition now to win out just on electronic tech. Apple got where they did because they combined tech with the experience.

Sincerely, until the PSN blackout, i didnt even know what was Qriocity... and damn, who call that Qriocity???

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I just bought an HDR-CX130E with inbuilt browser software that fires up when attached via USB. It takes 5 minutes to load up the contents of the camcorder, with no loading page or anything. It's useless tripe, and support seemed to think 5 minutes of a blank page was a perfectly acceptable user experience. The contents load as they should nigh instantly when accessed as a USB drive.

That pretty much mirrors my experience with the included software for the Sony Reader. Agonizingly slow when going through the software, but predictable USB speeds when accessing the storage on the reader directly.

And as an added bonus, it will somehow lock/disable your USB port if you do not first properly close the Sony Reader software. Using the Windows remove device applet which is used when removing all removable media while the Sony Reader is running will result in a locked USB port that cannot be use by any device until you run through some hoops.

Very unpleasant experience. Hence I stopped using the included Sony software over a year ago.

Regards,
SB