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Sony Already Lost Media War to Apple?
Declan McCullagh writes "Sony's Walkman was the king of media players. Now Apple's iPod is, and Sony Connect was a flop. But Sony's problems may soon be even bigger: the company is having a remarkably difficult time coordinating software development across different divisions and continents, and some managers are worried that things may be getting worse. Will Apple's recent forays into the living room create even more of a problem for Sony?"
Sony's EQ2 is taking a beating as well. Not to mention the original EQ that they simply let (are letting) die. I think the guy's at Penny Arcade hit the nail on the head with a recent cartoon: (paraphrase) they seem to be generating content by robots completely devoid of a human touch.
Sony's been making audio equipment for a long time, and it's really good quality. If Apple can compete with Sony's quality and Sony can't get cooordinated enough, they may have competition.
But what exactly is Apple going to do?
What would they do for stereo equipment? iPod docks? It's been done.
I only buy 17" component equipment. I like having a seperate receiver, cd player, dvd player, vcr, and the like. Apple doesn't produce anything in that form factor (and a 17" wide speaker with an ipod sitting on top doesn't count) and hasn't since the days of the pizza-box Quadras of the early nineties.
For me to consider putting Apple into my AV cabinet they need equipment that fits the form factor that both industry and I have chosen. I can put a cheap PC into a rack mount server chassis and use that for music and video playback a lot less expensively than even the iPod solutions cost.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I think that rather then split up, they need to do the opposite.
If they get their company to work together better, they become the 800-pound gorilla that they are naturally set up to be.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Apple didn't succeed because new social practices become possible. This is obvious - mp3 players were available before the iPod came along. (And anyway, half the social practices associated with iPods are mythical - like random strangers jacking into each other's iPods.)
When are people going to stop making up ever more fanciful notions about why the iPod is so popular and just look at the device and software itself? Unless you're a geek who likes to waste their day messing about with clunky hard to use software and devices it's pretty obvious why the iPod is a superior product to its competition.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
Although Apple's fan base has made it clear they want a media center device with recording capabilities, they don't want to give them what they want.
Why? because it will hurt their iTunes video download business? Sound like any major conglomerate you know?
I believe Apple will overcome this by developing a better movie/video, distribution/download, system/service. The service will hopefully be good enough to silence most of it's critics.
Apple would need to convince us that subscribing to their service is a better value proposition than doing all the "heavy lifting" of recording our own content.
As Apple continues to grow and venture into new territories there will be more "conflicts of interest" in the future.
Five years ago, Sony's music labels should have started releasing all albums as mp3 on Memory Sticks. They should have released a Walkman with a Memory Stick Slot. Sony would have owned the music hardware scene, and limited-edition Memory Sticks with unique content would have established the Memory stick as the standard flash format.
But now Sony's hardware is languishing, and their Sony label artists are all sporting iPods. As the only label/hardware manufacturer, they had an undeniable advantage, and they blew it. Oh well.SNE - approx $45 Billion AAPL - approx $59 Billion Even with its narrower focus, Apple is already a more successful company. Any new successful consumer product is only going to take more away from Sony.
Most Mac TOSLink cables are getting plugged into Sony receivers to play music from Sony lables and movies from Sony-owned studios. If you buy a Mac instead of a Sony PVR, or an iPod instead of a Sony Walkman, they still make lots of money off you.
True, but Sony music and Sony movies are not physical devices sitting in your living room, which is what the original article describes. Sony's still going to make money from their studios, but in affect, they've been booted out of the living room.
The exception to what you describe is the receiver, but that could be just a matter of time...
Sony isn't the best at anything, and is overpriced at everything, but if you don't feel like doing any market research, buy a Sony and you will do okay.
Honestly I am not sure your statement is as true at a general level for Sony any longer as it is for Samsung in the minds of most consumers, and I have heard less technically ept people express the same sentiments.
When I am not sure about a purchase today and have no time to look up product details, I am a heck of a lot more likely to go with Samsung because I can be sure of a general level of quality. I would say I have had some Sony duds over the last few years and do not consider the brand quite as reliable as you note.
Sure my 20 year old Sony CD player is great and still works. But I would not be likley to buy a CD player from them today.
Go into a Best Buy and look to see which electronics have the least number of boxes left on the lower shelf. Very illuminating...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The past 3 Sony cd players I've had in my car looked really cool but they would skip constantly even with new cds. Apple is just one of many non-sony options, I don't buy Sony anymore.
You may say Apple computers are overpriced, but I've been a PC user all of life until about a year ago, and can justifiably say that Apples are above and beyond PC's and well worth the extra cash. My Dell Inspiron 1100 running WinXP crashed about five or six times PER DAY. I've owned this iBook for about a year now and it's crashed a total of twice. My supposedly 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 Dell didn't have the power to run Counterstrike without seriously slow processing, but my G4 iBook runs World of Warcraft perfectly smoothly without any problems ever. I haven't owned a single PC that took less than 4 minutes to boot up, but my iBook boots up in 30 seconds. Furthermore, as between Sony and Apple, iTunes is refusing Sony's demand to raise music download prices above $0.99. I'd rather go with the company that cares enough to defend consumers from disgustingly greedy corporate whores. Sony, through most of its history, was great because they innovated so much and added so much great technology to the world, but now they're becoming as tyrannical as a Manhattan landlord.
But then again, thats just my personal preference...
But half of those didn't even end in 'defeat' for one of the brands. Both SNES and Genesis were highly successful consoles that are well remembered today. And can you really call machines like the C64, the Amiga, or the Atari ST failures? Sure, they're not around these days, but they were bloody popular in their day.
Apple can start out not worrying about Sony content, because they have an inside track to Disney content, which includes:
I think if Apple decides to start with just Disney content and is successful, other studios will jump on board. Look at Mark Cuban and his theaters/Production Company/HD Net? He would probably be one of the first to jump on board.
What, me worry?
* DRM - Sony products seem to have more restrictive and annoying DRM than any other, and they seem to push it harder and more arrogantly. Cases in point - the Minidisc (bleech) software, and the fact thay every practically DVD player EXECPT Sony is region free.
* Lack of price competitiveness - bad news Sony, simply sticking a Sony badge on 3rd party products does not get you a 20-30% price premium.
* Utter contempt for ethics and customers - 1,2,3...say it in unison "Rootkit"
Far from being a premium label, it is rapidly becoming one to avoid. If you look at its behaviour, and that of the consortia it belongs to, there is probably no company in the world doing more to deprive consumers of their rights.