SON¥: On The Fast Decline To Second Tierdom???

[Platform]

Massive battery recalls, several late-to-market products, retail competition on every front, core competencies (video) being vigourously challenged, sinking share in the portable computer marketplace, Nintendo & Xbox competition, movies and music no longer pull in profits like they did in prior decades, common stock is taking a beating in the markets, the list goes on.

The triumvirate of Panasonic, Toshiba, and JVC must be contemplating the all the ways to deal their great enemy Sony a severe kick in the gut.

Before it's said and done, Sony could end up splitting into pieces or shrinking down to the size of Akai -- or becoming the Japanese wing of Philips.

Sony has NEVER looked so vulnerable as they do now.

 

[ddrueding]

...but they make the smallest USB thumbdrive I've ever seen!

My pinky above the first knuckle covers it completely! 1GB! How cool is that!

Who needs a computer business, anyway?

 

[MaxBurn]

In my vague opinion Sony has always covered the entire range of stuff you can buy all the way from really nice quality kit and all the way down to POS. I am not talking about any specific product range either, just basically anything with the name on it.

 

[Mercutio]

Ask me sometime about my $900 Sony ES Receiver that spent roughly 60% of the time I owned it in the shop.

Or my Sony ES DVD Jukeboxes that won't play DVD+R discs.

Sony is a shitty company that deserves to die.

 

[MaxBurn]

How about their trinitron TV's, for years I think they had the best picture and my family and I have owned more than a handful of these. Not recently though, Platform is right they are falling from favor fast in that core market. I think their ES home stuff is just a ripoff, but some of their kit for professional broadcasting is pretty bulletproof. I had one of these broadcast quality SVHS studio players for a while and it had a great picture.

 

[Handruin]

Maybe their older stuff was much better. I'm still sporting a 13+ year-old HiFi VCR made by Sony...and it still works good.

 

[sechs]

For many years, Sony made their name (and money) on being an innovator and making quality electronics. At some point, the market went to cheap electronics, so, Sony, seeing it's market (and profits) rapidly erode, decided to follow suit. Sony now makes a lot of relatively cheap electronics and charges you extra for the logo.

 

[cjstaples]

Bad Sony!

Usually, I'm on the fence... owned my share of Sony prods over the years.

Love my Clie still... but consumer CD-player/clock/radio is worthless POS which will someday be disposed of via third-floor window.

But... I'm a bit tweaked today since my wife's VAIO up-and-died over the weekend. Autopsy hasn't revealed the reason why yet. It was sudden and painless... for the laptop.

(thank goodness for recent backups and my spiffy new Buffalo GB Linkstation! )

=cjs

 

[P5-133XL]

I can remember when Sony made great top-end monitors (along with lower-end products, at a premium price, to give a sense of completeness to their product line) Second to none. Then there was Samsung which made second-teir monitors with Sony Triniton screens that were just a hair lower in quality and specs but much better priced all along the entire Sony product line. Samsung was the company one choose if you couldn't afford the Sony model you actually wanted.

Nowdays, the two companies have switched place. Samsung is a much better brand than Sony in all product lines. Sony went the way of short-term profits. They went for cheap and large profits over quality and lesser profits. The problem is they squandered their brand.