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Sony Projects Record Losses of $6.4 Billion
redletterdave writes "Not 24 hours after Sony announced it would slash about 10,000 jobs by the end of the year, the Japanese electronics maker announced on Tuesday that it has again doubled its annual net loss to a record $6.4 billion. The new annual estimate is Sony's fourth revision of its original forecast. The company had already more than doubled its loss forecast for fiscal 2011 on April 5 to $2.9 billion, blaming floods in Thailand, poor foreign exchange rates, and a failed partnership with Samsung... Kazuo Hirai, the company's new president and CEO hired 10 days ago, will take 'painful steps' to revive Sony, and will unveil a 'revival strategy' at a Thursday press briefing."
When companies get big, they attract a lot of fat (such as overpaid CEOs) and the people that are actually responsible for the success have less influence. Replacing the CEO will not help, you've just exchanged one kind of cancer for another. Need I mention I'd like 500 million Yen a year for "taking responsibility" in a multi-billion-loss?
I broke my boycott of Sony due to shipping CDs with root-kits to get a PS3 when the slim model was released. Soon after, the network was hacked, and I lost the ability to use the console without agreeing to waive my rights to sue them if they get hacked again.
Breaking my boycott was a mistake. The company is dead to me now
Then maybe after 10 years, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and start purchasing some of your products again. In the meanwhile reap what you sow.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Sony was once a great company. I am afraid, like most big companies, they are long past their founders' vision and values. Even reviving Akio Morita might not revive the company.
Way to trivialize something sad. On behalf of AC's everywhere, DIAF.
Sony, how is that war against your customers going for you? At some point you need to wake up and realize that your customers are not your enemies, they are your boss.
Wake up Sony, you could be one of the greatest and most profitable companies on earth with a few policies changes.
Exactly. I have personally boycotted Sony for six or seven years now. I'm not an anti-Sony crusader, it's simply that after a company pisses me off repeatedly, they don't get any more of my money. Even if Sony did wake up, it's too late as far as I'm concerned.
Actually it is. People are pissed off from their existing purchases from those division (movies don't count, they not seen as Sony products). So these people are not buying new Sony screens, receivers, phones, and they're putting off others the brand while they're at it. Sony are probably the #1 most hated tech company these days.
Haven't you noticed that their PSP Go was still born, and their Vita is almost as dead after the early adopters and fanboys got it on release?
Each year, Sony is going to have a harder time. The anti Sony ranks are swelling as the company goes out of its way to piss off customers.
They need to compete on price, they are no longer considered a premium brand, so that extra $100 for the badge doesn't cut it.
They need to use standards and not try to force over prices proprietary shit on to us at every turn.
They need to stop their Not Invented Here mentality too.
Quite surprising their mobile department is quite open. They published many driver source code and also they published an alpha and beta version of android ICS for some models. I guess the mobile department is still more Ericsson than Sony :-/
The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products. Sony's eBook reader, for instance, is a model product. It uses the ePub format (the real, standardized one, not the hacked version that B&N sells). it uses a standard USB cable to transfer data, and charge. It doesn't have any backdoor via wireless or anything else that will let them pull a 1984 on books you've already purchased.
Eventually, though, Sony may end up with a publishing company through some merger/aquisition, and they'll fuck this up too.
I used to work in the repair dept of a local camera shop about 16 years ago. Sent a sony camcorder to sony for repair; it was *5 days* out of warranty when I got it from the customer. Sony ended up charging full retail for the repair, which was about 75% of the camera cost. The customer declined the repair.
Irony? Yea, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron!
He did more than being an engineer. Taking a job as a retail consumer electronics salesman showed he was passionate about customers and about understanding them.
His biggest flaw was in not arranging appropriate succession.
The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products
Another example, surprisingly enough, is an audio recorder, the PCM-M10. Uncharacteristically for Sony, it accepts MicroSDHC cards as well as yet another variant of the Memory Stick. If I didn't already have an Olympus recorder that does all I need, I might consider it... except that I just can't bring myself to buy a Sony product.
But, just when I thought that Sony might have picked up some Clue, along comes the PS Vita that doesn't even use Memory Stick, instead using a new flash memory format used by nothing else. DIAF, Sony.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Breaking my boycott was a mistake. The company is dead to me now
After the root-kit bit,I've stuck to my guns and never purchased anything from that company. If they go out of business,I'll crack open a bottle of bubbly and celebrate their demise.
Other companies used to use Trinitron tube in their TVs.
Now Sony uses Samsung LCDs in theirs.
Sony has fallen on its face with respect to engineering as well as the whole 'infect and sue your customers' thing.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Boycott? I just started choosing the better product circa 1990. Then when they started doing stupid crap like the memory sticks, rootkits,BD "win" purchase, I chose in each case to buy a standard product, which wound up never being a Sony product, until the last couple of issues, in which I actively make sure I don't support Sony in any way possible, going as far as to recommend anything but Sony even when someone asks about a Sony product, usually by saying, "Well, have you seen product x by y? It does all that, and this extra thing, costs half, and the warranty is twice as long and customer satisfaction ratings are 20% higher" and in 99% of the cases, all of those statements are true,
Sony is one of a few companies that deserves to die in their current incarnations, and it appears that their business practices are reaping just rewards.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.