Sony were going to own everything from the camera to the screen with all the bits in between during the days when broadcast television was watched on CRT televi

Sony were going to own everything from the camera to the screen with all the bits in between during the days when broadcast television was watched on CRT televisions. They bought up Hollywood studios so they would not get the Betamax problem again. But the LCD screen usurped the mighty Trinitron. Twenty years ago the LCD was low resolution, had poor contrast ratio, was small and cost a fortune. Nobody in their right mind would want one - or so the executives at Sony thought. Sony were a late entrant into the flat screen business with their screens coming from joint ventures rather than it being a core competency. Meanwhile their Korean rivals ate their lunch and made LCD screens their core competency. When mobile phones became the hot seller they were extremely well placed to ride the wave. Luckily Sony make more than just screens - after all they did have the whole chain from studio camera to TV at home with the professional kit for editing programs and so much else. But there are parallels with Kodak who never thought digital cameras would dominate. Kodak were early movers with digital cameras, Sony were with flat screens. But they got it wrong. Currency comes into it to, the Yen was not favourable when Sony started to decline. The mobile phone is going to become a commodity product - a 'hand rectangle'. There is a second wave going on where the Chinese high quality phones for a fraction of the price of the former market leaders are taking over. Sony don't have a 'core competency' in phones despite the best lenses and so much experience in consumer electronics. They also don't have any patents to take the top end of the market. In the short term this may seem bad for consumer choice, however, phones are becoming a commodity 'hand rectangle' product and Sony don't do commodity things. Their kit is special.