Sony Leaving the CRT Market

[Clocker]

I saw this at ArsTechnica. Hopefully, LCDs will get cheaper and better. I'd like to get one when they do...

Ars forum member Sonic Death Monkey gave me a heads up on this a couple of months ago, but we haven't been able to prove it until now. Sony is making plans to leave the CRT market. By phasing out the seventeen and nineteen inch displays, Sony hopes to push users towards their LCD offerings. For the rest of us, that means: An increase in production, and an (eventual) decrease in cost.

This begs the question, "Are LCD's ready for every desktop application?" With one Sony monitor on my desk, I'm hesitant to switch from a technology (and manufacturer) that I've grown to love. That said, I've gotten some face time on several of the more popular LCD's, and let me tell you, it's tough to resist dropping $2,000 on a breathtakingly beautiful monitor. To quote a friend of mine, "It's as if God himself is drawing the text on my screen."

With advances in the technology, even specialized users that depend on color saturation will be moving over to LCD's in the future. NEC-Mitsubishi displayed a prototype LCD using LED's for light source at Comdex. With more accurate color than CRT's, even the most hardcore CRT user can appreciate a switch. At 107% of NTSC color, standard CRTs (~70%) and the best color corrected monitors (~93%) pale in comparison.

Sony's move will leave Mitsubishi as the only producer of the smaller aperture grill CRT's. Dell, IBM, and HP have all been using Sony tubes in their monitor lines marketed to professionals. Word on the street has it that those OEMs are furiously searching for a replacement source of tubes. It's likely that they'll use Mitsubishi tubes, but with a third party doing the assembly.

 

[Tannin]

Interesting news, Clocker. I know tht Panasonic pulled out awhile back. LCD sales are taking off, yes, but they still only account for a tiny proportion of the market at present. One might reason that Panasonic and Sony know what they are doing, but then Panasonic pulled out of CD-ROM drive production about three years ago, and declined to replace their outgoing 32X model because "DVD drives were the only thing that would sell from now on". After six months or so, they realised just how hopelessly wrong they had been, and restarted production with a 40X CD, then another, different one (which was, I guess, cheaper to make), and then a series of at least two, probably three different 48X drives.

As Tea would say, these guyz out to get ought and talk to their reayilerz zometimes.

 

[Mercutio]

Speculation on slashdot suggests that Sony stayed in the CRT market only until its patent on trinitron tubes expired. That makes sense to me, even if I think that decision is somewhat boneheaded and stupid.

 

[CougTek]

I might mean that the price of LCD will drop, but it will also almost certainly increase the ASP of CRT to rise. With Mitsubishi (or Mitsubushi for Aussies) alone in the aperture grill market, there will be little competition to drive the price down. I'm not even sure they'll be able to answer the demand, so they'll have white card to increase their margin on their CRT sales since companies won't have the choice but to take their tubes.

I was all happy about the recent price drop of some of my favorite 17" and 19" CRT monitors. This is no good news. 17" LCDs, while a lot more affordable than they were, are still too expensive for most customers. Overall this means that I probably won't have a cheap and quality solution for my customers and that ultimately, I'll sell less.

 

[Tea]

Not all Aussies, Coug. Just the happy hairy ones and the grumpy not-so-hairy ones. Most of the others can spell. :wink:

 

[P5-133XL]

The Death knoll of the CRT market is indicated when the big guys like Sony abandon it. They only abandon that which is no longer profitable. Without some leverage like a patent they are left with a "comodity" market where no profit exists because of the stiff competition. They will then allocate their resources where the margins can be higher like LCD's.

If you think about it, the same has been happening in the disk drive market. The number of players keeps decreasing because of the comodity nature of hard drives. Eventually the market will be replaced by some other technology or there will be so few players that a monopoly or a cartel can occur setting prices and again making a profit. However, it is a very long hard life to the monopoly/cartel stage.

The basic idea is - If you can't be a leader, then the next best is to follow where the money is going. Whatever you do, don't go down with a sinking ship.

 

[Pradeep]

Given the atrocious picture quality of my Sony E540, I can only see this move as a good thing. And with the Dell 20" 2000FP for about $900, things are not really all that expensive. It will be interesting to see what Dell's new yet to be released offering is priced at (my thoughts are that it will be an HDTV capable 1920*1200 widescreen one) *dribbles*

 

[Cliptin]

I might mean that the price of LCD will drop, but it will also almost certainly increase the ASP of CRT to rise. With Mitsubishi (or Mitsubushi for Aussies) alone in the aperture grill market, there will be little competition to drive the price down. I'm not even sure they'll be able to answer the demand, so they'll have white card to increase their margin on their CRT sales since companies won't have the choice but to take their tubes.

I was all happy about the recent price drop of some of my favorite 17" and 19" CRT monitors. This is no good news. 17" LCDs, while a lot more affordable than they were, are still too expensive for most customers. Overall this means that I probably won't have a cheap and quality solution for my customers and that ultimately, I'll sell less.

If Merc's "sources" are indeed correct then there should be more makers of tubes. Hopefully they will be able to match Sony's quality.

 

[EdwardK]

Interesting news, Clocker. I know tht Panasonic pulled out awhile back. LCD sales are taking off, yes, but they still only account for a tiny proportion of the market at present. One might reason that Panasonic and Sony know what they are doing, but then Panasonic pulled out of CD-ROM drive production about three years ago, and declined to replace their outgoing 32X model because "DVD drives were the only thing that would sell from now on". After six months or so, they realised just how hopelessly wrong they had been, and restarted production with a 40X CD, then another, different one (which was, I guess, cheaper to make), and then a series of at least two, probably three different 48X drives.

As Tea would say, these guyz out to get ought and talk to their reayilerz zometimes.

You said it Tannin. Didn't Panasonic heavily backed DVD-RAM? Now, that is one heck of a monumental blunder!

Cheers,
Edward

 

[Tea]

Tannin used to be one of the biggest Panasonic fans around, Edward. These days, the only Panasonic product he buys is a box of floppy drives every few weeks. Unfortunately for me, "Panasonic" used to be a lot easier to spell correctly than "Mitsubishi" is. Such is life.

By the way, we have never yet sold a DVD-RAM device or a DVD burner of any kind. Sometimes people ask for one, but by the time Tannin finishes frothing at the mouth they seem to change their mind about it and buy something else.

 

[Tea]

Whools: I didnt answer the question. Yes, I think they did. I know our Panasonic rep was forever ringing up about it. I wonder how many units they actually sold? My guess is not very many.

 

[Mercutio]

Considering that, about four months ago, I got an email from one of the distributors around here for $90 DVD-RAM drives, I don't think they did very well on that one, either.

 

[mubs]

Pradeep wrote:

It will be interesting to see what Dell's new yet to be released offering is priced at

Dell does not seem to have the 20" 2000FP listed anymore. Wonder if that's because it's being replaced? They wouldn't pull it off the web site if it was just out of stock...

 

[iGary]

DVD-RAM is pretty popular in certain niches of enterprise storage -- namely DVD-RAM jukeboxes.

Otherwise, as far as a removable storage solution for a desktop / deskside workstation, it's actually a pretty decent choice as the drive mechanism prices are nowadays a lot better. Apple went crazy over DVD-RAM in the past, briefly.