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Sony Under Investigation by DOJ
An anonymous reader writes "As the DOJ continues its investigation into RAM price fixing, it has started looking at Sony's operations. With all the negative press Sony has been getting, this couldn't come at a worse time." From the article: "The Japanese company received a subpoena from the Justice Department's antitrust division seeking information about Sony's static random access memory, or SRAM, business, company spokesman Atsuo Omagari said. 'Sony intends to cooperate fully with the DOJ in what appears to be an industrywide inquiry,' the company said in a short statement."
Ram is going to get cheaper
Hooray! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!
Cheaper, faster, bigger, smaller
Hooray! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!
Now that people aren't makin' it expensive
Hooray! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!
It's gonna get cheaper!
Ninjas and pirates. How piquant.
Soon we will learn that all VAIOs are made from the souls of slaughtered orphans.
Yeah, because we wouldn't expect a quote from Sony about the status of a DOJ investigation into Sony to be, you know, biased anything.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
...the author of TFA that's painting the ugly picture on this issue?
"As the DOJ continues its investigation into RAM price fixing, it has started looking at Sony's operations."
"'Sony intends to cooperate fully with the DOJ in what appears to be an industrywide inquiry,' the company said in a short statement."
So in other words...
DOJ: "Let's see... next on the list is... Sony, you're up."
Greimel: "Lookit! Sony fucks up yet again, and then there's a PS3, and the 'sploding batteries, and Iwo Jima, and..."
Really now, the majority of TFA seems to be about Sony's other fuck ups rather than any incriminating substance regarding the inquiry.
The DOJ is expected to find that all evidence shows Sony to be innocent, all thanks to Anne in accounts who played a recent Celine Dion CD on her workstation.
Hey, leave me out of this!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
FTA:
"Earlier this month, U.S.-based chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor Corp. said its SRAM operations were also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice."
That's one other company under investigation. Maybe the investigation is industry-wide, maybe it's not. There's no reason to assume Zonk is more biased than Sony. I mean, who could possibly be more biased about the fate of Sony than Sony?
In any case "everyone else was pricefixing too" (or whatever the charges, if any, turn out to be) is hardly likely to make the damage of this story go away. We've got ridiculous PS3 prices, the whole Sony DRM fiasco, the exploding laptop batteries, and now this. Even if this was an industry-wide problem, it's not like Cypress Semiconductor Corp has exactly had front-page news of any kind recently. This is like strike 4 for Sony, strike 1 for everyone else. The fact of the matter is that Sony is far, far more vulnerable to this press than another company due to both previous bad press and the vulnerable financial position they're in running up to the launch of the PS3.
I think I see vultures starting to circle...
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
"So the DOJ appears to be investigating every manufacturer..."
Incorrect.
"....and there is no info even hinting that Sony did everything wrong."
Not coherent enough to be incorrect. It's a story about the impact of a DOJ SRAM (as opposed to the DRAM part which apparently caused your 'every manufacturer' confusion) investigation into a long and established company already suffering a number of other self-inflicted wounds. Why the tizzy, do you own Sony stock bunky?
For my part, Sony shifted from an engineering to a IP-lawyer/marketing driven company almost 20 years ago. They're a pox and their demise would be welcome news.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Nice try, Zonk. Nothing to see here, move along.
Wow static ram.. is that still around and used by someone?
just another sign the God wants the PS3 to fail and the evil mother company perish.
Investigations into the Blue Laser shortage. Seriously though, what the heck is going on at Sony, first its the Batteries, then the "laser shortage" and overpriced console, now its price fixing? When I was a kid sony stood for unequaled quality and innovation, now it seems to stands for "might last until the warranty expires, if your lucky". What has changed?
So, when people say that Sony isn't being singled out, that they're just one of many... that's exactly the point of the investigation.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
After their rootkits on CD's I'm surprised that the DOJ hasn't been chasing these guys more aggresively.
www.jmagar.com
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Except that you're comparing two companies that are structured in completely different ways. Sony has several divisions: games, music, movies, electronics, with a wide variety of products in each category. Cypress Semiconductor Corp makes....semiconducturs. It's all they do, that's what they're known for. The DOJ is going after Sony Electronics, which is sort of the "sub corporation" that makes the memory. They have nothing to do with "ridiculous PS3 prices" (did they get sued for this?), or the DRM fiasco (do you mean rootkit?). Bad press with batteries isn't going to make people stop buying sony branded music, or seeing sony branded movies. No one is going to look at this and go, "omg boycott sony!", and actually follow through with it. Sony is big enough to absorb the blows from minor news such as this.
And I'm pretty sure Zonk is more biased against Sony than Microsoft is. I'm pretty sure that guy just looks around for bad sony news, even if it's meaningless (see this article).
IIRC, there have been lots of articles talking about industry-wide price fixing of SRAM. Many companies actually admitted to doing so, especially in the late 90's. Just glance at the related stories.
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" - Doctor Who
Well, but isn't feasibility of imports a mitigating factor when looking for collusion evidence? I mean, is it possible to fix prices for SRAM, given its low degree of differentiation? Is the distribution channels and contracts with OEMs such a bottleneck in the downstream?
Static RAM? COME ON, SLASHDOT! You aren't even trying anymore!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
With all the negative press Sony has been getting, this couldn't come at a worse time
Or couldn't come at a better time.
man, that would've been a good name for the Lewinsky scandal...
[move
I agree Sony's other problems add to this, but as for those questioning the "industry-wide" aspect of this news, consider this: it's not price-fixing if it's just one company involved. Seeing all the other price-fixing stories out of the semiconductor industry recently, of COURSE it's an industry-wide investigation.
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If anybody thinks this will amount to much, really?
"You there, at the back, you have your hand up, no? Oh it's your hat, sorry my bad."
Jonathanjk.com
>>"Sony intends to cooperate fully with the DOJ in what appears to be an industrywide inquiry," the company said in a short statement. (Emphasis mine).
So, you feel that Sony's spin on this is highly credible? It also seems to me that allegations of price fixing might involve more than one company in an industry, since it would be pretty hard for a single company to fix prices without collusion from their ostensible competitors.>So the DOJ appears to be investigating every manufacturer, and there is no info even hinting that Sony did everything wrong.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
That's all; just a Sony-coined phrase that has literally come full circle to describe the very company that used it to begin with.
Yup, the DOJ went industry wide with their search for wrongdoing and found that it was Sony that stunk the most.
Even though recently Sony has been making a lot of fudge-ups and bad press, I kind of feel bad that Sony's having to deal with this now. This is the company that fought for better quality video, made portable audio a lifestyle, and innovated/invented several concepts that we could not live without. My family and I trusted the Sony brand for years, and it will be sad to see them getting closer and closer to another great example of a management failure in our business classes.
I hate to break it to you, but the editors don't look for news. They only can post what other people submit. Zonk happens to be the editor who posts most of the stuff related to video games, which includes a lot of anti-Sony stuff.
And also, it isn't meaningless. Even without the PS3, a huge company like Sony being investigated is news. They may just be another company in the queue, but that doesn't meant that it is insignificant.
This investigation is poorly timed for Sony because they are already struggling against everything else that's gone wrong for them. Topping it off with a "Hey guys, guess what? We're next up for being investigated for price-fixing! Ain't that good news?" certainly doesn't help their position.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
In any case "everyone else was pricefixing too" (or whatever the charges, if any, turn out to be) is hardly likely to make the damage of this story go away. We've got ridiculous PS3 prices, the whole Sony DRM fiasco, the exploding laptop batteries, and now this. Even if this was an industry-wide problem, it's not like Cypress Semiconductor Corp has exactly had front-page news of any kind recently. This is like strike 4 for Sony, strike 1 for everyone else. The fact of the matter is that Sony is far, far more vulnerable to this press than another company due to both previous bad press and the vulnerable financial position they're in running up to the launch of the PS3.
Yeah, but you got to think another 2-3 or 6-7 big headline news stories like this and how long will it take for people to just ignore most news about Sony? The sad thing is you'd have people still buying Sony products or ask just before they make the purchase, "Sony hasn't been in the news because of this product, have they?" before buying it.
Except that you're comparing two companies that are structured in completely different ways
Do you really think that matters? I realize that Sony is a conglomerate of rather disparate companies - but so far it looks as though all have of them have been misbehaving. Furthermore, that's kind of the breaks of sharing a brand identity. You sink or swim together.
Even though electronics has nothing to do with, say DRM, when either screws in an extremely public fashion up it's bad for the other. And when all the divisions (or several of them) start screwing up you start to ask questions about just how compartmentalized the company is: and whether it matters. If they're all bad independently they're still all bad.
I realize I'm oversimplifying, but so will the market, the media, and the average consumer.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
You do have a point that if it's price fixing there's more than one company involved. For price-fixing to work you have to have collusion on a near-monopoly scale. That means you have to have enough market share to get a monopoly. It does not mean you need the entire industry - especially if you're counting by company as opposed to market share. One or two "giants" with 40% each of the market can collude, leaving a dozen small companies out in the cold. Furthermore, one company can shoulder more responsibility if they initiate/direct the collusion.
Now I don't know anything about the SRAM industry. I don't know how much marketshare SONY has, how many companies there are, etc. And none of us know who - if anyone - initiated and directed the price-fixing. But it's a bit naive to assume that if price fixing was involved everyone was in on it. More than 1 - certainly (unless you're a monopoly), but everyone? Not necessarily.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Yeah, but you got to think another 2-3 or 6-7 big headline news stories like this and how long will it take for people to just ignore most news about Sony?
I don't think it will work like that. Humans like narratives. We like good guys and bad guys. These news stories are definitely putting Sony more and more as "the bad guy" instead of "company with great products". Consumer anger, in my limited experience, works on a kind of tipping-point basis. No one really cares until it hits a point where it becomes, suddenly, an issue. Sony's DRM escapades would have been enough alone, I think to get them in serious trouble with the consumer if it weren't for the fact that it's a rather technical issue and the CDs effected weren't exactly #1 with the nerds (as though any major-label CDs could be). Still, it had an effect.
I expect some real consumer backlash, especially when it comes to products that are extremely dependent on marketing: consoles. If the PS3 were the hottest thing since sliced bread (ugh, another awful business metaphor) they'd be fine, but with the PS3 already under serious criticism they really don't need to annoy their possible consumers. Angry consumers can do a lot of damage short of a boycott. Buying less, buying slower, buying later - any and all of these behaviors could really hurt Sony because they're so vulnerable right now.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I think you completely missed the humour in that signature :)
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Does it look a little different now? I think we've all learned to never take the statements of a company under investigation at face value -- they've shareholders and executives to protect, after all.
Ok, how about taking the company statement with a teensy bit of logic:
Either Sony fixed prices for all companies all by themselves, or the investigation does comprise a signifcant portion of the manufacturing base.
My monkey brain selects number two. This knee-jerk Sony-bashing stuff is getting kind of weird.
Sure, some people take it a little far -- but it's Sony that has bashed themselves, others are just making note of it. I for one am refusing to purchase Sony products until I see evidence that they've cleaned up their act.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Anybody know if there has been price fixing in the NAND flash market as well?
This is one of the downsides to being a conglomerate. Perhaps the bad press about Sony combined with loss of market share across the board might encourage other companies not to overdiversify.
Even if not, it will sure keep them from buying a Sony portable CD or DVD player to play them on, or a Sony PLAYSTATION 3 console with the SIXAXIS controller powered by a Sony rechargeable battery.
I see why you post as AC.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.