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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?"
According to all the slashdot experts.. Sony wont sell a thing, and Apple are dominating the audio, hifi market. Geez.. Its amazing to see anything useful said here anymore.. Slashdot really is the new Fatbabies.
You macheads are just flat-out batshit crazy! I normally try to be a bit more diplomatic about this, but on this particular topic, you are just in some kind of brand-inspired psychosis. It is amazing to me the number of cold, hard facts you have to blithely ignore to even begin a conversation like this.
There are millions of Xbox 360s already in homes, already hooked up to televisions, and every one of those acts as a media extender, and is HD capable.
The number of XP media center PCs shipped last year, exceeds the total number of computers Apple sold last year.
The PS3 will have HD output, online connectivity, LocationFree TV support, media hub functionality, and will be selling in quantities an order of magnitude larger than any product Apple has ever sold (and that is even if it doesn't do very well).
The single largest set-top box manufacturer is now owned by the single largest network equipment vendor.
All of these are facts, and yet you say that the first product to ever bring digital media into the living room is a Mac Mini with a remote control? That is just insane! Apple doesn't even have the manufacturing capacity to compete in this market at the moment, much less the resources to dominate it. Apple has shortages just trying to get a million computers out the door in a year. Yet you think that they are the only player in the market, and they are going to outproduce Microsoft, Sony and Cisco?
I'm sure that Apple (just like every other tech company in the past five years) sees the living room as a place they want to get their products. I'm also sure that having a rabid bunch of fanatics who don't think a category of product exists until their favorite brand makes one, won't hurt their sales. However, they need to get up to the point where they can even compete with the number of Media Center PCs, before you can even start talking about how they are going to compete with things like the 360 and PS3, much less Scientific Atlanta boxes.
Every time I hear this argument from Macheads I have to shake my head. Even iPods (a fairly easy to design and manufacture product) have not reached anywhere near the kind units that the PS2 or Scientific Atlanta cable boxes do. There is a BIG difference between what you would like to see happen, and what a company is physically capable of doing. Just ask Microsoft about that one, and the shortages they've been having with the 360. Producing tens of millions of complicated boxes with numerous components from numerous vendors is something only a few companies can pull off, and Apple is not one of those companies. Apple's production has been strained to the breaking point many times just keeping up with the iPod. Scaling that up to a more complicated products, selling in the tens of millions isn't something you can just make happen because you want to.