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Over the past decade Sony has fallen from tech giant to struggling underdog, with a series of mistakes and mis-management causing the firm to miss out on just about every big advance in consumer electronics. But where did it all go wrong?
The New York Times ran a wonderful feature over the weekend about the firm’s sad decline. It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a taste:
“What went wrong is a tale of lost opportunities and disastrous infighting. It is also the story of a proud company that was unwilling or unable to adapt to realities of the global marketplace.
“Sony’s gravest mistake was that it failed to ride some of the biggest waves of technological innovation in recent decades: digitalization, a shift toward software and the importance of the Internet.
“One by one, every sphere where the company competed – from hardware to software to communications to content – was turned topsy-turvy by disruptive new technology and unforeseen rivals. And these changes only highlighted the conflicts and divisions within Sony.”
A fine example is the MP3 player: Sony had the technological and musical background to launch an iPod-beating digital music device long before Apple launched its device. It never happened. Famously, Sony was also late to flat-panel displays.
Sony made three big mistakes: it focussed on releasing cutting-edge hardware at the expense of releasing products on time and creating software; its catalogue of products became bloated and confusing, and its online strategy sucked.
Now, Sony is being led by Kazuo Hirai, the man behind PlayStation. He’s planning to slim down the Sony range, and is focussing on mobile devices; cameras and camcorders; and games. He’s got one hell of a job on his hands. [New York Times]
Image by Steve.M~ under Creative Commons license
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Thanks for the link.
For anyone who is interested, Wired November 2002 carried a great piece highlighting the discord between Sony’s Hardware and Music departments; perhaps heralding this sad state of affairs.
I remember reading this when I was still in high school and wondering how ridiculous it was that Sony had so much infighting going on (this was set to the backdrop of an article on the iPod called Rip Mix Burn, with the Hindenburg Balloon as the cover art)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/sony.html
I remember reading a few years ago that Sony run the business as independent silos and that the communication between each department is minimal. So the music division and hardware division simply won’t acknowledge each other, hence the lack of an overall cohesive strategy.
In fact it was probably that article.
in such a competitive technology market, big firms like sony and blackberry can, will and do decline and even exit. pretty much every big industry has to adapt to digitalisation at this point, and a failure to do so could see even more big names knocked out. especially with online streaming, iTunes and piracy being at the forefront of digital media for so long now, and for the foreseeable future
All their proprietary cables, cards, etc don’t help them either.
but that technique does work for apple…
I think after their win over the Bluray format Sony became arrogant with trying to lead the way with technology, its been happening a long time from walkmans, minidiscs to Blurays.
With this they just kept on the same pattern thinking they are better all the time with their own releases.
To which its their own downfall to ignore the consumers what they really wanted.
Never been a big sony fan.. they seem a bit like apple imitators – plenty of style, not enough substance, big price tag. Plus, their UIs are almost always trickier than the rest.
One thing I will say though – along with Olympus, they are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest in Compact System Cameras
Apple imitators? Don’t be ridiculous. In reality, Apple have copied more from Sony than the other way around (including the ‘chicklet’ keyboard – which was on a Sony lappie while Cupertino was still trying to sell you a bright blue toilet seat cover for a portable computer).
Sony has a patent catalogue that most companies (including Apple which has very few) would kill for. They either invented or jointly invented the 3.5″ floppy, the CD, the DVD and Blu-ray. Their problem is they became too bloated to react to fast-paced changes in technology and the consumer market and traded too much on past glories (they STILL make magnetic-tape Walkmans!).
Sorry, that’s not what I meant. Their style is very unique. What I find similar is that both companies make beautiful-looking gadgets, and advertise them really well, but in reality there is less “bang for your buck” when it comes to function.
It’s probably mainly a recent thing… I only started following tech around 2008.
I used to like sony, When they brought out the mini-disc recorders I was in seventh heaven (being a musician) Excellent sound, Record anywhere, Skip free playback on a single AA battery. That was until I tried to get MY recordings OFF the netMD recorder to my PC. Some stupid propriatry format called ATRAC, Which cannot be converted to standard mp3 or wav, Let alone moved off the device itself in file format. That was their downfall and to this day still is. They won’t learn.
Aux-in?
Let’s not forget that Sony kicked off in the mid 1940′s after the war. For a company over 60 years old, and being at the top of their game in terms of innovation and aspiration for most of that time. Their recent demise, is more of a simple evolutionary process. Sony cannot go on forever being the power they once were. There has to be a natural change in the order of things. I am not an Apple devotee, but imho it cannot be ignored that Apple in the 21st century did, and have changed the consumer technology landscape, and how quickly they did it! It’s about the coming together of the right types of minds at the right time. If Apple can maintain the same presence that Sony have done over the same period, it will be impressive.