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Battery Recalls A Blow to Sony's Recovery
Yasser writes to mention the fallout from yet another Sony battery recall. Sony's stock hit a one-month low today on the news that they'd be pulling over a million batteries off the market. The recall is expected to have little impact financially, but has prompted the Japanese government into ordering Sony to look into the battery problem. From that article: "The ministry instructed the two companies to investigate the safety of Dell models Latitude, Inspiron and Precision and report on their findings by the end of August, the ministry said. Earlier this month, problems with battery cells supplied by Sony forced Dell to recall an unprecedented 4.1 million laptop batteries in the United States. "
Really, I'm sorry that your profits - that you earned so hard by putting out piles of junk - now get eaten into by recalling said junk.
Who came up with the idea anyway, that products must not harm the customer? Sheesh, won't somebody think of the profits!
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
Root Kit, PS3 price vs features, Blu Ray delays and cost, Battery recall, pretty much every comment from ken regarding the PS3. You can only go up from here right?
...but, wow, it seems like Sony can't do anything right anymore, and every move they make is scrutinized for its downfalls. I'm not referring only to this Battery Recall. Is this a symptom of slashdot and its heavy skewing? What other sites should I check out to broaden my horizons?
Whatever else you can say about Sony, their hardware is typically top notch (and almost always crippled by their software). If they're letting quality slide on the manufacturing side then they're in danger of losing their one remaining ace, the perception that "Sony makes good shit".
I'm talking about the average consumer who's unaware of rootkits, sonicstage or ejecting MMORPG users into space.
After having read all of the coverage here on Slashdot, I'm confident Sony will make this up with the overwhelming future success of the PS3.
Last year, Toyota (yes, Toyota) recalled about 2 million vehicles in the USA. (Contrast that number to the 200,000 vehicles recalled by Honda.) Simultaneously Toyota has grown to become the #2 automobile company in the USA, surpassing Ford.
We already know about GM and Ford. Since achieving domination of the global market in the 1970s, these companies produced shoddy products for 15 years. By the time that they corrected course, they had already lost substantial market share.
Now, Sony joins Toyota, Ford, and GM.
side note
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Apparently, Panasonic will now replace Sony as "the consumer electronics giant for the masses". I never could understand why a Sony VCR (in the 1990s) cost $100 more than an identically equipped Panasonic VCR. By the 1990s, Sony had already outsourced production to Southeast Asia, but Panasonic continued to advertise -- actually, brag -- that its VCRs were still designed and built in Japan. I even saw an sticker (on the VCR at Fry's Electronics) proclaiming something like "Still Made with Quality in Japan".
Sony. http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/08/24/ap2 972235.html
New punctuation update "~" (no quotes) at the end of a line to indicate sarcasm. ~
Really, I'm sorry that your profits - that you earned so hard by putting out piles of junk - now get eaten into by recalling said junk.
It all started to go downhill after Akio Morita died. The way I saw it his influence kept Sony's focus on high quality, innovative products. After his passing Sony became more interested in profitability over quality. The stories of Sony products not being up to snuff are no legion. Too bad. They had one of the best names, because of the reputation and now they're wrecking it over profits and rushing things to market before adequate testing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Well, i personally havn't had any problems with the sony battery in my laptdjsaDASDJAShd NO CARRIER
If Sony keeps stepping on their dicks with golf shoes, pretty soon they won't be able to screw their customers anymore.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Sony also made the recalled Mac batteries...
4 1117245005 081604956
e xchange/.
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2006082
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2006082
Affected ranges of serial number prefixes are as follows:
12-inch iBook G4, battery model: A1061
ZZ338 through ZZ427
3K429 through 3K611
6C510 through 6C626
12-inch PowerBook G4, battery model: A1079
ZZ411 through ZZ427
3K428 through 3K611
15-inch PowerBook G4, battery models: A1078 and A1148
3K425 through 3K601
6N530 through 6N551
6N601
To see if your PowerBook or iBook is affected, visit
https://support.apple.com/ibook_powerbook/battery
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Yeah, he's British born in that first sentence, but he continues "to becoming the first US born CEO of a major Japanese firm." That's kind of an impressive feat.