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Sony spins off camera business into separate company
- rawoke083600 7y agoFor anyone following the madness and joy that is cameras and cameras releases... Can I plug my fav Youtube Camera Channel. "Camera Conspiracies". This dude is real fun to watch and not as clinical as many others that just list the features and some test shots. He is on the "hunt" for the perfect camera now for years. Uploads few times a week. Casey if you reading this... Keep up the good work man ! Spoiler the channel is not a fan of Sony Cameras.
- svarrall 7y agoGetting the ducks in line for a sale?
- tobsmagoats 7y agoExactly what I was thinking, if it proves to be true they will move whatever division the Playstation line is in before Holiday 2020.
- BigChiefSmokem 7y agoSo what’s the consensus on Disney buying Sony Pictures and acquiring the rest of the Marvel movie rights?
- spiralganglion 7y agoSeems like this is affecting more than just their camera business. Do we know which division the PlayStation now falls under? This is a big year, with the next generation consoles just around the corner. So far, Sony has been keeping a low profile relative to Microsoft, and I think it's been harming their image a bit. I'd hate to see this sort of a corporate restructuring (perhaps forcing a change of company name?) pull the attention away from their new tech, new games, and plans for the next decade.
- BigChiefSmokem 7y agoPlayStation is under Sony Interactive Entertainment. To be honest PlayStation is very important for Sony so I would not worry. Sony can change their name all they want but the PlayStation brand is incredibly valuable due to its cultural significance.
- paxys 7y ago“Through the establishment of Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony will not only accelerate the integrated operation of the EP&S businesses,” reads the release, “but also aim to optimize its organizational structure, talent and business portfolio, while further enhancing competitiveness and creating new business.” Man, this reads like someone got it from a corporate text generator.
- laurieg 7y agoIt's almost certainly a translation from Japanese. The "not only...but also..." pattern is giveaway, plus the rather long sentence stitched together with "while". It can be really hard to force Japanese into natural sounding English.
- rtpg 7y agoFor the curious the original text > ソニーエレクトロニクス株式会社の設立により、EP&S傘下の事業間の一体運営をさらに推進し、組織・人材の最適化、既存事業の競争力強化、そして新規事業の創出と成長を図ります。 I mean it's still boilerplate business reasons but it doesn't feel as much of a word salad
- simonlc 7y agoFor those uninitiated to the photography world, Sony, in the past few years has completely disrupted the entire profesional, and amature camera markets. They are ahead of the curve in mirrorless formats, and have forced other makers like Nikon and Canon to make the switch.
- geerlingguy 7y agoSort of. The high end pro market is barely starting to turn a page and use mirrorless bodies Like the Sony a9/a9II. Nikon and Canon are following a bit behind in mirrorless tech, but are still very much on top of the pro market (for now), mostly due to professional services, support, and glass.
- selectodude 7y agoGlass, of course, is more important and expensive than anything else.
- matwood 7y agoI’ve been envious of the Sony bodies, but the thought of giving up my Nikon glass meant I wasn’t moving. I’ve been thinking about picking up a z6, but I’m not sure it’s worth the price.
- geerlingguy 7y agoFrom what I've seen, the D780 is a very well rounded 'best of both worlds' body. And I, having tasted the amazing quality and ease of use of video on the Z50, paired with forever-battery and very good focus system on the D750, am tempted to pick one up.
- oh_sigh 7y agoIs there no adapter?
- 7y ago
- hoseja 7y agoMaybe they'll now start making ungimped smartphones? Ah, who am I kidding.
- jungletime 7y agoSamsung was in this space too. Gave it up ahead of the curve, seeing how people don't buy cameras anymore. It wasn't a very profitable business for Samsung, despite making a great camera system. Sony jumped out ahead too. But hasn't really innovated in the last round. They were the best in autofocus, but Canon has great autofocus too. Canon Beats Sony with much more pleasing image colors, and huge lens selection. Panasonic has better stabilization, and makes better video cameras. I would compare Sony to a 1 inch thick Razor Gaming Laptop. Great on specs. Kind of sucks as a laptop. Still Sony has a very popular midrange camera system. And their low light performance is the best.
- parston_michel 7y agoI have a "1 inch thick Razor Gaming Laptop". It's an absolutely fantastic notebook computer. It can maintain high power states indefinitely with two huge bottom mounted intake fans. Excellent mobile workstation. Do NOT use it on your lap.
- mortenjorck 7y agoIf the A7/A9 series are analogous to a Razer laptop, the a6000 series would be the Lenovo Yoga. Very compact and performant, if a little complicated.
- atombender 7y agoI have the Samsung NX300 mirrorless camera sitting in a drawer. It was actually a fantastic camera for its time, quite a lot like the Sony A6xxxx series (I have the A6300), and with very good lenses such as the 20mm pancake.
- hatsunearu 7y agoI wish samsung didn't give up. The cameras basically ran Android and could have been really fun with app development and whatnot. edit: also, just something that ticks me off: Razer does not make 1 inch gaming laptops. Their whole schtick is that they have "gaming ultrabooks".
- gruez 7y ago
- milleramp 7y agoDoes this include the image sensor design and fab division, the article is not really clear?
- solarkraft 7y agoThis is an important question, as the vast majority of high-end smartphone and other camera sensors are manufactured by them (Canon is the notable exception as a company that doesn't use Sony sensors) and it's a very profitable business. If I understand correctly from the official announcement the three sub-companies are going to be "Imaging Products & Solutions", "Home Entertainment & Sound" and "Mobile Communications" - the sensor business would fall pretty neatly into the first one.
- thedance 7y agoI don't think so. I think "imaging products" is cameras. Sensors and modules would fall under their semiconductor division.
- solarkraft 7y agoI get that you wouldn't put it into -products, but what about solutions? Don't they also make a lot of the stuff around the sensors?
- crazygringo 7y ago> spinning off its entire “Electronics Products & Solutions” (EP&S) segment... into an intermediate holding company... > Restructuring like this happens all the time, often with little to no effect on consumers. Seems barely newsworthy, just an internal reorg. Not really sure why this is so upvoted. It's not like they're rebranding or bringing in outside investors or doing it to an underperforming division in obvious preparation for selling it.
- hrktb 7y agoIt means the EPS business is healthy enough to sail on its own. It may also means easier partnerships with entities that wouldn’t have stuck with Sony as a whole, in particular in these times where serious competitors are emerging. The division has been doing a very good job for a long time, it feels like a pretty promising news overall.
- mortenjorck 7y agoCan someone better-versed in corporate organizational strategy explain the advantages of spinning off a company that remains under the same conglomerate umbrella? I can understand it as an intermediate step to prepare a business unit for a sale, but what other motivations are there?
- vikramkr 7y agoYou might be giving it more autonomy as a unit to operate than possible as a unit within a larger organization. Letting it operate as its own company with it's own revenues and statements and all is also good for investors for greater transparency (why Google restructured to become alphabet for example). They might divest it or have it IPO separately (and it sounds like they are trying to simplify their business so that might be in the works) but just giving it the full freedom to operate as its own company might be worth it in its own.
- cultus 7y agoOften things like this are tax related.
- erosenbe0 7y agoMy guess is they want to separate the balance sheet of something that is subscription based (like entertainment) vs. something with a lot of factories and capital investment. The debt structure and cyclical variations are probably quite different.
- robjan 7y agoIt limits the parent company's liabilities for one. If, for some reason, the camera division starts hemorrhaging money they can just cut it off or let it go bankrupt without harming the parent company too much.
- hrktb 7y agoIt also allows to bind partnerships without having to deal with the parent company. It happens with their NFC division for instance, that they spun out in a joint venture with Docomo and take over the mobile world by storm. If tomorrow Nintendo wanted to work with EP&S, they wouldn’t have to go through all the legalese that would be implied if it was with Sony proper.
- rasz 7y agovirus = no tourists = no market for cameras?
- threww5577 7y agoSony cameras sold in Japan are infamous for not having English language options.
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- h2odragon 7y agoDidn't they buy the camera business when it was Minolta? I recall the refunds Sony and Minolta had to issue for bad sensors back when.
- stan_rogers 7y agoMinolta had been sold to Konica by that point, but yes, the Sony α line was once Minolta's α/Maxxum/Dynax line and some of the Konica Minolta P&S and bridge camera development came over as well (with changes related to the use of Memory Stick and other Sony touches rather than what Konica Minolta had been using in the non-SLR lineup).
- esturk 7y agoIf activist investors are so effective in demanding change, why don't more of them push for more changes in chaebols like Samsung? Seems like the more simplification there are, the more efficiency can be gained and the greater the stockholder return.
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- emptybits 7y agoFor those not keeping up with the consumer and pro digital camera scene, nearly all brands (except Canon?) buy Sony sensors for their cameras.[1] Nikon, Panasonic, Olympus, etc. [1] https://www.techradar.com/news/chances-are-these-sony-sensors-are-in-your-new-camera https://www.techradar.com/news/chances-are-these-sony-sensor... (and many other references for this)
- AuryGlenz 7y agoYeah, Canon is the major exception. Because of that their sensors are always at least one step behind everyone else’s.
- pwdisswordfish2 7y agoI remember reading somewhere that Canon does this on purpose. For example, Sony cameras are known to have overheating problems that Canon doesn’t have, because they value reliability more than being on the cutting edge.
- ksk 7y agoThe other main reason is that upgrading the tooling for sensor fabrication is super super expensive, and Canon has historically used the high-volume entry level camera market to subsidize this, while sony uses their smarphone business to subsidize it. Canons entry level camera market is tanking just like everyone elses which probably made them weary of such investments in the past few years (till Sony came and stole their lunch). It seems like they've decided to go for the high end high-profit segment. I'm super interested to see what kind of sensor there is in the R5. They're probably not at A9 read-speeds quite yet, but it will be interesting to see how close they've gotten.
- ksk 7y agoThat is entirely false. Nikon actually designs their own sensors. They don't call up Sony and order a bunch of sensors. More info here: https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2018/07/17/pixels-for-geeks-a-peek-inside-nikons-super-secret-sensor-design-lab https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2018/07/17/pixels-for-...
- ChuckMcM 7y agoThis makes a lot of sense to me, the camera business is pretty standalone and has been on my wishlist for a while. That said, Sony as an industrial conglomerate appears to be spinning apart. It will be interesting to see where that leads.
- fireattack 7y agoTitle is very misleading, it's not just the camera, it is their entire consumer electronics business, including mobile and perhaps TVs etc.
- DevKoala 7y agoSmart move. Who is buying cameras now?
- jakebasile 7y agoLots of people still buy cameras, photography is still a popular and interesting art form. I got a Nikon Z50 a few months ago and love it.
- DevKoala 7y agoSorry, I meant amid the crisis. The camera division was about to see a major downturn on devices sold for the next two years as society in general avoids travel.
- cozzyd 7y agoI just bought my first SLR thinking now is a good time to learn a new hobby.
- DevKoala 7y agoThen perhaps I am way off base.
- jakebasile 7y agoGreat time to practice macro!
- markkanof 7y agoI don't think photography depends on travel. I bought a Nikon Z6 at Christmas time this year. My main use is to take pictures of my kids. I'll still be doing that regardless of if we are on a trip to Europe or hanging out in the backyard.
- grantpalin 7y agoDid you switch from another camera? I use the Nikon D50, an older camera but still functional with a number of lenses, and have been eyeing a switch to mirrorless, particularly to the Z50.
- tyingq 7y agoStill managed by the parent company, and not sold off.
- Ice_cream_suit 7y agoThey still waste shareholder capital making cameras? Good to see David Loeb shake up these fossilised managements and deliver value to shareholders.