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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."
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.
I hope their losses continue to increase. Die you greedy bastards. Before you do, however, give me back my "Other OS". Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Karma is a bitch, isn't it, Sony? May you go down swiftly. I'd love nothing more after all the hostility and the recent rumours of tying PS4 games to the console with required online verification.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people.
Hopefully they'll go out of business -- and show the world what happens to you when you treat your paying customers like fools and criminals.
Naturally, all blame should go to piracy and insufficient copy protection.
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?
C'mon Sony, You're not trying hard enough. If you alienate a whole other group of your users, you can slash 20,000 jobs.....
Treat your customers like criminals that need to be controlled and this is what you get.
Free Market is a bitch, ain't it.
it would seem Sony boycotted themselves on the road to insolvency if they don't wake up to the realities of servicing a web-enabled market of distributed systems. Without security and data integrity, people will leave in droves, because they have no option but to put up with whatever lax security is in place this time.
Without their corporate network model, there is nothing to distinguish Sony's hardware from anyone else's except for proprietary cabling, ports, and overpriced equipment as a result. The PS/3 was the first system they ever delivered that didn't go all out to be proprietary in every way conceivable.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the standardized interconnect of digital protocols.
It stopped mattering who you bought your devices from. They all implement the standards as best they can for a price point. Show me an LCD monitor that doesn't do 1080p nowadays, whether it's embedded in a laptop, a monitor, or a television.
I'm just surprised we seem to have stopped at 1080p as a standard just when LCD manufacturing reliability got to the point where we could produce much higher resolution monitors quite easily.
High end displays all compete on lumens and black levels as well as responsiveness (refresh rate.) As technology was cross-licensed and the manufacturing facilities consolidated, what did anyone think? That brand name would really matter all that much in the long run?
People don't forget stupid marketing mistakes like insisting on reporting the Peak Power Level a Sony amplifier can handle instead of the Continuous Power Level ratings used by high-end amplifier manufacturers.
People don't forget having their credit card information stolen.
People don't forget about being without service for over a month.
People won't buy your products just for the tag line "SO, New York!"
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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 ?
I wouldn't wish a VAIO upon my worst enemy.
I spent more time de-crapifying VAIOs than actually prepping them for the end-user.
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.
Maybe they'll learn to stop making their devices with proprietary connectors and storage so that people can chose Sony products without committing themselves to replacing all of their electronic equipment and storage cards. I doubt it.
You call that a LOSS? Geez, you can do better than THAT!
Sony's decline began with purchase of a movie studio. The company that once was Betamax and Walkman (and championed fair use for the consumer!) is nomore. Since that time, has anyone purchased a solid sony consumer product that isn't laden with burdensome DRM?
Burdensome in that your own mother simply cannot find a way to fairly enjoy a paid for piece of entertainment on a product meant to display or play entertainment from Sony? "my mom isn't a criminal, so stop treating her and all your other potential customers like one"
PS Vita and its proprietary, overly expensive memory cards are Sony's latest brain lapse and example of backwards thinking. All consumer products in this day and age use SD cards, well other than Sony products which also use memory sticks, but at least you can use Memory Sticks in other Sony products. The Vita cards can't be used in anything else. The 1980's called and wants its business model back.
As far as software goes, the PS3's XMB hasn't changed in years and is a usability dinosaur. While some of Microsoft's dashboard changes have been hit and miss, at least they are coming up with new ideas and attempting to improve their UI (other than the annoying ads of course). Then there is the removal of features and "its not our fault if we get hack and lose your data" TOS.
Sony used to make great devices, but I won't touch their products anymore. Samsung is what Sony used to be.
While the media wing may not be what is losing money today, it is their Big Media stake that is ruining the electronics company.
From lost focus on developing the best HW for consumers and Spending time on things that electronics enthusiasts have come to hate them for (Rootkits, DRM, supporting MPAA/RIAA).
Being a part of the MPAA/RIAA, Sony electronics now thinks first about DRM and second about customers. So PS3 is the first device to get Cinavia, and yet it still won't play .MKV files. Making it somewhat crappy as a media player.
If Sony hadn't jumped into the media game it would have been better focused on building devices people want, there would have been no Rootkits, no membership in MPAA/RIAA. If that Sony hit hard times, we might actually be sad. But instead Sony Media/Electronics is an unfocussed anti-consumer juggernaut that we get joy seeing go down the tubes.
If rumors are true about PS4, Sony's war on consumers is going full force with zero backward compatibility and technology to block used games.
IMO they deserve to go down the drain.
I saw something. Might have been a phoenix down.
Agreed. A few years ago, we bought some very nice Vaios for some of our users. NEVER AGAIN. Not only is crapware an issue but the hardware itself is flaky.
Since then, we replaced them with Lenovos and wow....the difference is night and day.
Sony should be a case study at Harvard Business School on how not to do business as a "technology" company. Almost everything they do is customer-hostile, including their continued insistence on using proprietary technologies when the entire world is moving towards more openness.
VAIOs don't have the Cell architecture.
Nor did the Super NES have Blast Processing(tm). What can a Cell do that, say, an i7 can't?
Traditional A/V companies are all doing pretty poorly. Like most consumer products, there's no middle ground anymore. It's all super cheap crap fresh off the boat from China or expensive custom boutique stuff. Sony is neither one of these, and I don't suspect they'll survive in the long run.
Someone will pay big bucks for the Sony name, but that's the only thing that will be left: a name that bears no resemblance to the original innovative company (see also: Zenith, RCA, Atari).
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Sony CEO -
"Effective immediately, Sony Industries will be shutting down our Entertainment division until such time as they can be taught never to sue another division of Sony or our customers. Ever. Our Electronics division will now be at the forefront of Sony's drive to become competitive again. We will be looking back to what made us a great company and learning from the mistakes we made from that time until today.
We will be firing anyone with an MBA degree who does not understand that short term profits and suing our customers is not a good business model.
Furthermore, we would like to apologize for fucking over our customer base these past ten years or so. We will be removing all DRM from our products as a way of apologizing and all of our electronics now come with a "Please, hack me!" symbol on them."
Yeah, we can dream - can't we?
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Geez, why not offer him a kick in the balls while you are at it? the quality in the Vaio sucks and their support is terrible. get an Asus or Acer, much better, or an HP business model, those are nice. but a Vaio? Crap on a cracker. which is of course one of the main reasons Sony is bleeding to death, where once their brand meant quality they raced to the bottom on quality of the hardware only they kept the upmarket price.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
Profiteering at the expense of customer experience = short term gains, long term losses.
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
We do not fornicate.
(Adapted from the widely overused 'Footprints in the Sand' poem.)
One night I dreamed I was sitting in front of my computer next to Sony.
Many scenes of past contact with Sony products flickered across the screen.
In most scenes I noticed some form of DRM helping me managing my digital rights,
but in some there appeared to be none at all.
This bothered me because I couldn't understand why Sony wouldn't care for some of its intellectual properties.
Especially music CDs seemed to be completely unprotected. So I said to Sony,
"You promised me, that if I bought your products, you would always help me protect my digital rights.
But I have noticed that especially IP in dire need of protection, like music CDs, has had no protection at all.
Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"
Sony replied, "The times when you didn't notice any kind of DRM, my child, is when I rootkited you."
PSN going down for an entire month probably hurt a little. They refused to secure their network prior and then when it did go down they drug their feet through the crap they were shoveling to get it back up. Their customer support will continue to go down the crapper as they care more about the RIAA and MPAA than the customers.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
An almost universal problem that Sony has on the consumer electronics side is their branded price premium. Item for item across their entire product spectrum they attempt to collect a price premium just because the name on the widget says "Sony" and while that might be true some of the time for some models of some products it's never universally true for everything. And even where the products they sell are premium price and they are better, are they THAT MUCH better? Usually no. Let's face facts, most PC's all come out of the same 4 factories. Most TV's come out of the same 6 factories and so on. And while manufacturers can often spec their own production runs to be a little bit better or a little bit unique a-la Apple, it can't possibly be true for everything all the time.
Cost alot extra and have the ability to have features pulled out from under you after you paid for them?
Oh you wanted good things? Sorry. I can't find any of those.
...because caucasions are too damn tall.
This sig intentionally left blank.
If Sony does anything to the XMB they'll probably just fuck it up. I prefer it stays the same.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving company.
Interlaced display formats should be eradicated.
I just purchased a Sony DSC-HX100V superzoom camera that advertised 1080p60 video recording.
Guess what? It records 1080i. It comes with windows-only software to deinterlace it. Which means my workflow is very painful.
What is it with interlace? No one has CRTs anymore!
[I forgive 1080i30 ATSC A/53 broadcasters, as we're stuck with 720p60 or 1080i30 in ATSC countries - but no need to capture interlaced, capture and edit progressive, and let your MPEG-2 encoder do the 1080i compression if you must!]
While the media wing may not be what is losing money today, it is their Big Media stake that is ruining the electronics company.
Apple made billions and billions selling iPods. That could have been Sony instead, but their media business made sure that Sony music players couldn't play any music from Sony Media for fear there could be any illegal copying.
Sony could have made ten times more by selling tons of music players and give away all Sony music for free to their customers.
Can someone please explain to me how "decreased projected income" became "loss"?
"slash about 10,000 jobs by the end of the year...annual net loss to a record $6.4 billion"
So they're expecting the people who were laid off to walk out with $6.4 billion in office supplies?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Flat out, the memory card thing is solely so they could hit the $250 price point. Without it, they felt they would have to charge $300 for a PSVITA
Good-bye
I hate the rootkits, DRM and proprietary formats as much as the next Slashdotter, but I am shocked just how out of touch people are about what is really hurting Sony right now.
The average consumer of electronics is not concerned with these things. The average consumer of electronics barely knows how to hook up their BluRay player let alone even tell you what DRM means. Electronics have become a commodity item to where differential in quality between brands and features is nearly non-existent. Because of this the only driving force in the success of the product is the ability to sell it cheaper than your competitors, Eg. slave labor in China or Taiwan.
This is why Sony and any other electronics manufacturer could give fuck all about what a bunch of nerds think about their rootkits and DRM.
Apple and MS are just as nasty to their customers as Sony. What about Comcast?
So it appears you have a point: Sony's devices that can run Linux are just as bad as its devices that can't.
I won't feel sorry a bit for Sony although I do for their employees and those companies that need their products.