Sony has lost 12%.
Sony is bleeding money - business strategy discussion
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On the one hand they will have more freedom now to incorporate the mobiles with the rest of their line up to have more "cross talk", although I don't know why this would not have been possible before. On the other hand, it depends who was doing the actual mobile tech development, considering that they have now paid quite a bit to get some important patents from ericsson and will continue to license some others, it would seem that maybe ericsson did most of the development. I don't know what happens with that now, if they keep the dev/research labs or not...
NathansFortune
Regular
Yes. It gives Sony a proper mobile strategy going forwards and they can leverage the PS brand properly and make a proper PlayStation Phone with Vita internals and they can do the same as Apple and Samsung and combine their DAP division so they run a unified platform all with PS Suite running.
The TV re-org is interesting as well because I think it shows Sony are ready to play to win in the LCD market (their JV is readying a purchase of Panasonic's mobile displays factory in Japan to produce super high quality IPS displays and they themselves have invested very, very heavily in OLED). The upcoming tech division looks interesting, if they can get an inspirational leader like Kaz to run it they will definitely be first to market with large OLED TVs. They already have the 25" Pro OLED screen for broadcasters and I have heard they are looking at a 27" consumer oriented OLED screen for early next year sometime.
All of the IP and development staff have transferred over to Sony. They paid $1.5bn for it.
New products are the lifeblood of any consumer tech company. A new product is a PS4 not the millionth iteration of a Bravia, Walkman, cybershot whether Sony or not. Old products where there's no profit to be made. Better words might be regeneration, market disruptor, innovation. PSS where's the ipad competitor, the iphone competitor?. The only place they're releasing a new product is a PSP successor where i'd bet they're aghast at the costs and wish it to become an old product.
In that regard I thought it was interesting yesterday that when I was picking up Uncharted 3, I tried Eurogamer's 60fps video stream that they advertised would run at 60fps on iPad. Sure enough, that's what it did. The S Tablet was there too, and it also ran the video, but it was choppy. I couldn't say immediately if it was a bandwidth issue, but the browser at least ran a lot faster than the iPad 2's browser, so that's at least something. The Samsung tablet couldn't run the video at all.
Do you know a lot of people prefer stock OS over customized one, as release update much faster. Good example is LG 2X, they promise Gingerbread since June, and only release it yesterday in Europe only.
Sony does have a neat Youtube player though ...
But I think the time for investing too heavily in customised UIs for Android should be over soon (Sony also tried this at one point, anyone remember that 3D tile thing?), as this is not a problem that individual vendors should have to solve, but Google. From the looks of things, Android 4.0 should be a major step forward in that respect.
Consolidated Results for Q2 FY11
CPS

Sony revised down on a bunch of products except PS3 where they are maintaining their 15M units forecast. They are currently underperforming last FY total shipments so they will need to have their best quarters ever (for PS3) going forward. They are currently off target by 1.1M (.7 miss from last FY and .4 below last FY). I don't know...maybe they are thinking 7M for Q3 and 2.5M for Q4 or 6.8 and 2.7? Oct NPD should give us some US clarity at least for sell-through forecasting.
bloomberg
Sonys stock price...wow...I had not looked since selling, anyway, if you believe in the company though I still expect the price to drop further, now might be a time to jump in.
CPS

sony report said:
Sony revised down on a bunch of products except PS3 where they are maintaining their 15M units forecast. They are currently underperforming last FY total shipments so they will need to have their best quarters ever (for PS3) going forward. They are currently off target by 1.1M (.7 miss from last FY and .4 below last FY). I don't know...maybe they are thinking 7M for Q3 and 2.5M for Q4 or 6.8 and 2.7? Oct NPD should give us some US clarity at least for sell-through forecasting.
bloomberg
Sonys stock price...wow...I had not looked since selling, anyway, if you believe in the company though I still expect the price to drop further, now might be a time to jump in.
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I think I've come around to your line of thinking. It might be time to redo the entire mgmt structure.
Which Samsung tablet? Maybe last year's model since Apple is trying to get the current ones banned in the EU and had some success with a Dutch court?
Do you have the URL to the video? Might be of interest in the Hadheld Tech forum, to compare the SOCs and compare the video codec silicon.
OK here is my 2c on what is wrong with Sony (And I think they will continue to be successful), I don't have any special insight, and FWIW I don't think it has anything to do with corporate structure.
And you still haven't said what gives you special insight into Sony's corporate issues.
I think the consumer electronics space has become crowded and it's difficult to compete with hardware alone.
If you look at the successful genre defining devices ipad etc they are a lot more about the overall experience than than just the hardware. The IPad being a case in point, there is no tablet market, there is IPad and if you want to count it Kindle.
Sony is still fundamentally a hardware company, and without a shift in focus they will continue to produce also ran products that compete with the defining products.
Apple was a hardware company, but they saw the writing on the wall and are shifting focus to become an online service company.
I could also start my rant on Japanese software development vs US software development, but I'll skip that.
I also agree they need less better defined products, but that's mostly a function of just competing with the front runners.
To that end I think PSSuite is a step forwards, it at least recognizes that platforms aren't or won't be going forwards defined by hardware.
As an aside splitting up divisions can actually help, for example my experience at MS was that collaborating between groups was easy, it could be a win/win for both sides. Collaborating inside of groups was often painful because you simply couldn't get goals aligned.
And you still haven't said what gives you special insight into Sony's corporate issues.
I think the consumer electronics space has become crowded and it's difficult to compete with hardware alone.
If you look at the successful genre defining devices ipad etc they are a lot more about the overall experience than than just the hardware. The IPad being a case in point, there is no tablet market, there is IPad and if you want to count it Kindle.
Sony is still fundamentally a hardware company, and without a shift in focus they will continue to produce also ran products that compete with the defining products.
Apple was a hardware company, but they saw the writing on the wall and are shifting focus to become an online service company.
I could also start my rant on Japanese software development vs US software development, but I'll skip that.
I also agree they need less better defined products, but that's mostly a function of just competing with the front runners.
To that end I think PSSuite is a step forwards, it at least recognizes that platforms aren't or won't be going forwards defined by hardware.
As an aside splitting up divisions can actually help, for example my experience at MS was that collaborating between groups was easy, it could be a win/win for both sides. Collaborating inside of groups was often painful because you simply couldn't get goals aligned.
As I understand, Sony tweaked and optimized Android on their devices. They are their usual selves now, since they usually enter the stage by showing their behind first (They got the process backwards). Their tablet S marketing was but a fluff.
At this moment, I'm more curious about their ability to tailor and optimize Android 4.0 for their [strike]devices[/strike] unique experiences, and of course Playstation Suite. But their product marketing has to change like right now. It may mean a fundamental reorg to simplify internal responsibilities, and make people responsible for vertical output (all the way to end user experiences rather than division boundary). Horizontal organizations tend to allow managers and developers to make excuses for themselves.
This is all from external observation of course. So I may very well be wrong.
At this moment, I'm more curious about their ability to tailor and optimize Android 4.0 for their [strike]devices[/strike] unique experiences, and of course Playstation Suite. But their product marketing has to change like right now. It may mean a fundamental reorg to simplify internal responsibilities, and make people responsible for vertical output (all the way to end user experiences rather than division boundary). Horizontal organizations tend to allow managers and developers to make excuses for themselves.
This is all from external observation of course. So I may very well be wrong.
Yup same here, although personally I don't think they are capable of fixing the software experience situation on their own, they just don't have the know how for it. They need to partner with a software company pronto.
Software has been a problem for them since Apple ate their Walkman lunch years ago. They hired some Apple guy to head their software efforts but haven't heard what came out of it.
Has any Japanese company produced software with good UX?
But it can't only be software. Or how else do you explain their decline in TVs? Their TVs always looked better in the showroom and enough people paid the premium for the Trinitron or XBS.
They used to have sleek ID. But now, everyone can use Gorilla glass with metals with IPS or AMOLED screens. Sony's products no longer stand out the way they used to. I don't think they declined so much as everyone else caught up or making slick designs became achievable for more competitors.
The NEX EVIL cameras and the Vita are sleek but their designs alone won't make a lot of sales.
They seem to dip from the same technology pool as everyone else. For instance, before flat panels took over TVs, they had exclusive things like SXRD and bought into some other exotic display technologies. Of course commoditization and the fast price drops in flat panels probably killed development of these alternate technologies.
So they end up using the same techs and components as everyone else and packaging them together, which is what the Vita is, using ARM and SGX silicon that everyone else can get. One of the few proprietary bits is the memory card format, which is going to antagonize a lot of people rather than attract them.
Has any Japanese company produced software with good UX?
But it can't only be software. Or how else do you explain their decline in TVs? Their TVs always looked better in the showroom and enough people paid the premium for the Trinitron or XBS.
They used to have sleek ID. But now, everyone can use Gorilla glass with metals with IPS or AMOLED screens. Sony's products no longer stand out the way they used to. I don't think they declined so much as everyone else caught up or making slick designs became achievable for more competitors.
The NEX EVIL cameras and the Vita are sleek but their designs alone won't make a lot of sales.
They seem to dip from the same technology pool as everyone else. For instance, before flat panels took over TVs, they had exclusive things like SXRD and bought into some other exotic display technologies. Of course commoditization and the fast price drops in flat panels probably killed development of these alternate technologies.
So they end up using the same techs and components as everyone else and packaging them together, which is what the Vita is, using ARM and SGX silicon that everyone else can get. One of the few proprietary bits is the memory card format, which is going to antagonize a lot of people rather than attract them.
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