Walkman Creator Leaves Sony

Gammu writes "Nobutoshi Kihara, the engineer behind the Walkman, has left Sony. In the late seventies, one of the co-chairman of Sony, Morita, requested the audio division create a portable tape player capable of playing his operas while he was on transpacific flights to the US. After less than a year, the Walkman was released to the public and revolutionized the music industry. Read about the development of the first Walkman at Low End Mac."

Comments

Walkman Vs. Ipod

[BRUTICUS]

Sony has a name that is still embedded in everyone's mind. If they were smart they would create their own Ipod killer and name it Walkman in a huge marketing campaign. Instead they are tarnishing the Walkman name and calling every single device they have that's capable of playing MP3s "Walkman".

There is huge room for new MP3 devices still. Even with the Zune. The Ipod takes up such a large marketshare and it is a product that is frankly geared towards Mac users in a world that is dominated by PC users. Don't' tell me it's not geared towards mac users either. The thing manages all the MP3 files on your hard drive AND on the device its own way. That is the Mac way. Hiding your files and giving you a GUI.

Re:Walkman Vs. Ipod

[hhawk]

They had or have a digital walkman..

But they were at launch, all tied into their Memory Stick products...

To expensive for my tastes. I can think of 3-4 products I didn't buy from Sony because I didn't want to be locked into the Memory Stick. I think it's the thinking behind the marketing of the Memory Stick that has lead to their decline.

Granted it's hard as a World Leader; if you build new products in a open standard everyone is going to rush in and build to the same standard and you'll create a huge market with lowering margins.

Clearly it's better to milk the Betamax and Memory Sticks markets as your cash cows ;)

Re:THe Walkman

[LiquidCoooled]

There is no lesson here.
Sony were in the right place at the right time and managed to define a generation.
Running a business is like a river, it ebbs and flows along. Sometimes its slow, other times its a raging torrent but as long as you stay in the boat you will reach the ocean.

There are many products which define a generation, the walkman was one of those Nobutoshi Kihara and Sony should be proud of their achievements.

Apple have caught the wave this time, and in another 5-10 years someone else will.

Re:Or, to say it less flamebaitshly

[MP3Chuck]

But, unfortunately, while both headlines are true, the summary/tfa headlines "sell" more clicks. You'd think /. would avoid joining the ranks of the rest of the "Sensationalist Media," though.

If the Walkman had been released in 2006...

[stud9920]

If the Walkman had been released in 2006, it would have used an exotic, overpriced format of cassettes only used by Sony, and would only have been ready in 2008 at a cost of $800.

Re:THe Walkman

[Barryke]

I beleive what your parent meant was the whole Sony PS3 story.

Leads to 'not creating a displeased public opinion concerning your brand or flagship product'

Re:Walkman patent case

[arose]

A patent that describes both a Walkman and an iPod? How far into the "idea, not implementation" and "obvious" fields does one have to wander to not get a few million from someone who actualy did what you only had a fogy idea of?