'Sony Needs a Fresh Hit' (bloomberg.com)

Even as Sony's CEO Kazuo Hirai has done a remarkable job over the past five years -- taking bold decisions on the areas the company should be focusing on, and cutting efforts on those that aren't working -- his company desperately needs a fresh hit to boost its revenue and to become relevant in the mind of most, writes columnist Tim Culpan for Bloomberg. An except from his article: According to a company statement Tuesday for investors' day, the key will be to "remain the 'last one inch' that delivers a sense of 'wow' to customers," expand recurring revenue, and pursue new businesses.Those three strategies are closely linked. With TV sales in decline, its Vaio PC business spun off, and its smartphones barely a blip on the radar, Sony's last inch is heavily dependent on the PlayStation. Sony's Game & Network Services business has grown at both the top and bottom lines over the past five years, but the games console business is stuck in time. [...] Sony needs to build a device that will be far more ubiquitous and can appeal to consumers beyond the current male-skewed slowly aging hard-core gamer base. Amazon and Alphabet, with Echo and Home, are two such examples, and Apple will probably follow suit. With its background in audio, video, sensors and entertainment, Sony has all the right parts to make it happen. For the company that invented the Walkman, dreaming up another hit shouldn't be so hard.

Comments

That seems unlikely

[lusid1]

Sony lacks the organizational cohesion to deliver on any product line or strategy that crosses business unit boundaries, and an obsession with proprietary formats that makes economies of scale impossible to achieve. The Playstation brand is succeeding in spite of Sony, not because of them.

Debacle of Sony : from engineers to marketeers.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty stupid to cite the Walkman when trying to guess where the future of Sony lies. The Walkman was the vision of one man, the co-founder of Sony who was an engineer and a tinkerer at heart. He was also the man responsable for having pushed Sony to produced the smallest world band radio receiver ever. He didn't care wether it was financially feaseble or not, he said do it and his underlings said ok. Sony of the past (ie pre- Columbia acquisition) was a company that had vision. It was a company made by engineers pushing the envelope. Today Sony is competely different. It's a company driven along by marketing people and other pencil pushers. The engineers are relegated to the dark corners of the room. Seriously, the engineers at Sony are top rate, it's just the that every project they work on is sabotaged by their "entertainment aka Mr-DRM division" all the time. So you end up with crappy overpriced products. It's no wonder the Koreans ate Sony's lunch.

Need a product without vendor lock in

[theshowmecanuck]

They are too stuck on vendor lock in and DRM. Instead of relying on consumer loyalty by making good products, they try to rely on forcing customers to only buy Sony stuff whether it meets the needs it not. Back in the day when people built component stereos, people could mix and match and many bought Sony components with others like say a Sony amp and a Dual turntable. If it we're today, Sony would only allow you to use a Sony turntable with a Sony amp. People are sick of that shit.