7 ms·

The Ten Year Decline of Sony

83 points by akandiah 14y ago

CamperBob2 14y ago
Blaming an engineering-centric culture for bad corporate performance? That's... novel. Sony has only one real problem: Sony. Merging an entertainment conglomerate with a hardware company was a dumb idea, because every product manager at Sony now has to get approval from two completely different companies with two completely different cultures in order to ship anything. At Sony, if the technology isn't proprietary enough, the DRM isn't annoying enough, or there are no clear opportunities to give the customer an enema with a fire hose, the product doesn't fly. Blaming the engineers, wow. Good one.
- josephlord 14y ago
  I think that maybe the problem was that engineers were encouraged to aim for the next completely wow gadget and become the father of the next Walkman, Playstation... And too little emphasis and reward for progressive minor improvement and polish removing rough edges (particularly in software). I think when software became more important and hardware less Sony didn't have the right balance of people and didn't do enough to adjust it. I worked in TV Product Planning for a long time. There was virtually no contact with the content arms. It was remarkably hard to work with them even when we wanted to. If anything while I was there there was too little co-ordination and collaboration and too much of different parts of the company fighting or just going in opposite directions.
- kevingadd 14y ago
  I think the article does provide some compelling arguments to support this, though. To quote: -- Sony’s strategy never comes together as a cohesive whole because their engineers are constantly in competition with each other to become famous for creating the next big proprietary format or gadget. There are so many proprietary formats or unnecessary electronics coming out of Sony that it makes Sony’s overall strategy and identity very confusing. The engineers all want to be the guy who creates something as big as the Walkman or PlayStation, they are all competing for that recognition inside of the company. However their ideas are created based on the love for technology, not long-term profitability. On April 2012, Hiroko Tabuchi wrote an article to the New York Times saying, “Sony remains dominated by proud, territorial engineers who often shun cooperation. For many of them, cost-cutting is the enemy of creativity — a legacy of Sony’s co-founders, Mr. Morita and Masaru Ibuka, who tried to foster a culture of independence. But the founders had more success than recent executives in exerting control over division managers.” -- This is certainly plausible, even if it's unfair to blame an engineering focus for Sony's failures. How else can you explain the fact that they STILL insist on using insane proprietary standards like ATRAC and even new Sony devices like the Vita use custom storage instead of standard (far less expensive) storage formats like SD cards? The fact that the PS3's absurd design got greenlit and made it all the way to ship is further evidence that engineers are given freedom to make myopic technology-focused choices.
  - dfox 14y ago
    It is painfully simple to find some example of tradition or technology focused engineering without regard to price in almost any piece of Sony hardware. Be it custom Sony ASICs in almost anything, overly complex mechanical constructions, PCB layouts that are optimized for obsolete manufacturing processes (there is certain Japanese layout style, which leads to boards that are insanely expensive to manufacture, at least anywhere outside Japan) or proprietary formats (ATRAC, UMD, MemoryStick ...) and overly complex interfaces (compare Game Cube and PS1/2 controller interface), and tendency to have hardware support for almost never used and often even never implemented features (just look at how much things were dropped in slimed-down versions of each playstation, or for how long did Bravia TV's had MS slot, USB and even later Ethernet ports marked "service only")
    - brusch 14y ago
      can you elaborate on the PCBs ? Just wondering what "Japanese layout style" means. Too many layers ? Not crowded enought ?
      - dfox 14y ago
        Board level: Lots of empty space and jumper wires, mostly single-sided (and single sided boards with screen-printed conductive ink are surprisingly common). Almost OCD approach to service markings. Wave soldered SMT on bottom side of single-sided THT board. Two-sided boards on phenolic paper with screen printed carbon vias. Process testing structures (trace impedance etc.) on each board and not common for whole panel. Incredible amounts of test points each individually marked in silkscreen. Affinity to build complex single-sided boards. Japanese specific components, mostly hybrid ICs combining different standard dies in one package, in Sony's case often completely standard components that are manufactured by Sony itself as second source with completely different markings and sometimes packages and pinouts. System level: boards are mostly not self contained modules but designed all together (I have just seen some Yamaha design that essentially uses board to board connector and whole connected board as jumper wire). Lots of glue logic placed on random boards of whole system. Many instances of mostly empty single-sided boards with only connectors and jumper wires. Complex interconnect topologies between separate boards. In my opinion this comes from history of Japanese electronics manufacturing, they after all started doing SMT in 60's or 70's. All this looks to be optimized for small scale prototyping runs and custom robotic assembly of large series, while most western designs are optimized towards mid-scale series using existing automation. Generally you get designs that look like simple Chinese designs optimized for large scale manual assembly (toys etc.), but are orders of magnitude more complex. Look inside random DVD drive (as most of them are ODM'd by Sony, and by the way, when you want to buy new DVD drive try to find one that has Sony brand, as it is significantly cheaper) to see what I mean, in almost any HP laser printer it is painfully obvious which part is designed by HP and which is unmodified part of Canon's print engine (although there it is mostly because of different manufacturing processes).
- meej 14y ago
  Actually, for Sony, it's not novel at all. The power and territoriality of Sony's engineers is legendary. I used to work for a wholly-owned Sony subsidiary in the US, and getting any of the engineering groups in Japan to use our company's technology (which was the whole reason Sony bought us in the first place) was an exercise in pulling teeth. That said, it was getting better by the time I left.
- dsk2012 14y ago
  I agree. It's hard for me to believe that certain directions that Sony took were engineer driven, as opposed to mandated by, say, the entertainment division. Early to mid 2000s was essentially one boneheaded move after another, from music players that didn't play mp3s, to cd rootkits, to UMD movies priced higher than DVDs. I wish I could say hindsight is 20/20 but you could literally see the train wreck happening in realtime, no hindsight needed.
  - MBCook 14y ago
    As a Sony fan I remember watching their MP3 stumbling and being amazed. Even after MP3s got large traction, Sony continued to push MiniDiscs (which were a nice format in their day). As flash cards got bigger and you could start to put multiple albums on a single card, MiniDiscs still only held one (unless you really sacrificed sound quality). Eventually Sony bended to the MP3 trend by releasing a new MiniDisc player with MP3 compatibility. Remember CD players that would play burned CDs of MP3 files? Sony's worked by hooking the device up to your computer where it would transcode the MP3s into a proprietary Sony format and then put those on the disc. It was one step above setting the thing up next to your speakers and pressing "record". They did the same kind of nonsense with flash based MP3 players, where they never made any kind of dent for the same reasons. Their devices wouldn't play MP3s natively until (I believe) years after the iPod came out. They said what they have so often: "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead". What they keep finding out is that no one is following them, and the torpedoes are really doing damage to their ship. BluRay is the only thing I can remember them winning on. It was technically superior, but it also got a huge boost from the PS3 (which, remember, they were selling at a $250-$300 loss at first). Even then, as people shift to BluRay the market is crumbling to streaming video.
- tangue 14y ago
  "Bad corporate performance" : you've hit the nail. Remember when Sony publicly adopt Objective-C and GnuStep for a week before canceling it ? [1] This is symptomatic of a dysfunctional organization. Not a content vs hardware problem. http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/27/sony_adopts_then_drops_cocoa_like_gnustep_plans_to_rival_apple_ios.html http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/27/sony_adopts_then_d...
- jessedhillon 14y ago
  Did you work at Sony, or do you have some source for the claims you're making there? It seems that you're asserting a favorable worldview -- engineer-driven culture can't be bad -- and then adding a post-hoc justification about media and hardware companies, and what sort of perverse incentives you think that pairing would create. Is your comment just speculation?
- bjornsing 14y ago
  Yea, this was the part of the article I was missing too. I worked for Sony Computer Entertainment for a period around 2005. I can partly see the "engineering-centric in a bad way" thing, but to put the blame there for Sony failing to launch an MP3 player before Apple... Seriously, Sony Music killed it of course.
deleted 14y ago
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carlcoryell 14y ago
Sony still hasn't apologized for multiple installations of rootkits on customer computers. I lost all interest in the company after they made those choices and I'm glad to see that a culture that tolerates such enmity towards their customers and disregard for copyright (they were illegally using GPL software in their rootkits as well) isn't doing well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...
- ekianjo 14y ago
  And they lost me as an online service customer (and probably others, too) with the password-and-PI-stored-in-plain-text scandal a little while ago. Gaining one customer is hard, but losing them is very, very easy.
- dhughes 14y ago
  Me too. I know when I compare electronics I skip right over Sony it's just second nature at this point.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  You're waiting for an apology? Last I heard, the President of that division said he didn't understand why everyone was so mad. "Nobody knows what a rootkit is anyway, why should they care?" I don't think we're ever going to get an apology from them. If we did, it sure wouldn't make up for anything or change my mind about them. They're evil bloodsucking monsters bent on the destruction of quality technology. I've been boycotting them since '05 due to that scandal. Fuck Sony.
dsr_ 14y ago
Sony builds great products, and never follows up well. They poison their own name. Walkman: the original portable media player. They improved battery life, they improved sound, they captured the high-end of the market and inspired competitors... but they could never reduce price while keeping sufficient quality to differentiate a genuine Walkman from a 60% cheaper competitor. Did they keep the high end? Sure, but they also produced crap indistinguishable from their competitors at the low end... Repeat for CD players. Repeat for DVD players. Repeat for the VAIO laptops. Remember when a VAIO was always a high-performance ultra-portable? Now it means everything they do in computers.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Yeah, exactly. That's called Brand Dilution. Or Brand Flushing, in this particular case.
tvwonline 14y ago
I feel Sony never made the transition to software. I have owned a lot of Sony products over the years and the older devices I had like VCRs (which had little software) where infinitely better. For example the a Blu-ray/Surround Sound System I bought a couple of months ago is terrible and maybe one of the worst products I have ever bought. It takes 60 seconds to boot up (So the Sony TV turns on and is displaying with in 5 seconds, but there is no sound through the sound system for a minute!!!) in addition, the DLNA client on the unit often becomes unresponsive and refuses to accept simple pause commands while watching video. In today's world, if you can't do software well, you will fail. PS: I loved my Minidisc player back in 1999 - I was sad it didn't have more success, well, up until I got my first iPod.
- sxcurry 14y ago
  Totally agree - my new Sony Blu-ray player may be electronically OK, but boy the software/firmware is awful. Horrible interface, slow startup, crummy remote, and an obtrusive software update notice that pops up a few minutes into a DVD. My new flat screen TV was a Samsung - I'm just not going to buy any more Sony gear, and I don't think they will survive.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  "I feel Sony never made the transition to software." Actually it might be more accurate to say Sony has yet to make the transition to 'systems' away from 'solutions'. I also found it kind of funny a person talks about Game Consoles when talking about Sony, that is a small part of Sony, historically Sony has sold products where they manufactured all of the key technologies. They were one of the first vertically integrated companies that I encountered. It can be very powerful to be integrated in that way because you control your own destiny, you make your own screens, you make your own electronics, you make your own machines to make your products. They got disrupted by the Koreans and the Chinese who started picking out 'parts' of the things that Sony made and making those so that others could build 'Sony like' products without having to be vertically integrated. Samsung, Quanta, LG, Hyundai, Etc. All willing to sell the part you want against the others selling the same part, defacto standards emerge, change happens at the feature level not the function level. Everyone starts selling a 'flat screen' TV and while we argue over Plasma vs LCD we get motion compensation, viewing angle improvements, contrast tweaks, Etc. So many things Sony did, and then tried to 'lock in' control. Their e-readers, their computers, their TVs, their media players, their game consoles. Lock in gave them control but people generally start rejecting external controls at about age 13 and rarely get more complacent as they get older :-). It will be very interesting to see how they evolve (or don't). But their asset ratios aren't a problem it is their execution that is a problem.
ekianjo 14y ago
Not a bad article, but obviously not written by someone who has much background in Finance nor Business. Saying that "Sony has a culture where it is OK to fail" is laughable, for example. How many companies out there are widely successful? Most of product launches are so-so or fail to meet their objectives, yet you do not see companies firing everyone every 6 months. Iterations are necessary until you hopefully find a good proposition. It takes time to get a hit. Now that's no excuse for Sony to keep pushing bad products out of their chains, but of course, every company allows employees to fail at least a few times. R&D is about trial and error. Then I think the author is deeply wrong about quoting iSupply as a reliable source for the cost of hardware. iSupply has NO idea of what the hardware actually costs. They simply open a parts catalog and check how much each part would be sold, one by one, and add it up. That is downright ridiculous, because when Sony buys chips for their Playstation, they tell the supplier: "Make me THIS price because I will buy 10 millions of your chips" and they have huge advantage in negociations. So, iSupply and nobody else apart from the supplier and Sony themselves know the real Bill of Materials. The rest is pure speculations. And saying Sony does not care about budget and is focused on engineers only sounds false to me. If that was the case why would they produce their Playstation outside of Japan? The Playstation 1 and 2 were the examples of frequent cost reduction through their lifetime - just like the PS3 did as well, with a big step down in price from the earlier years. I am pretty sure Sony does not LOSE money on PS Vita either, and probably keep some margin there to reduce the price later. Net, they are not losing money with the Vita, and there is no need to "kill" it. They may need to further invest in it, rather, for it to become a reasonably successful machine, but I am afraid they do not have much cash to heavily support it seeing their overall financial shape. Finally, showing Return of Assets alone is meaningless. You have to compare Ra from one business to another business in the same fields. Ra only makes sense in comparison. Let me add as well that comparing liabilities between Software heavy companies (like Google and Microsoft) does not make ANY sense, since Google and Microsoft do not own plants and manufacture much themselves (their may businesses are advertising and second, software). It would make much more sense to compare Sony's liabilities with Panasonic, Sharp, Mitsubishi... while there is not actual company that covers the exact same range of businesses as Sony. Seriously, when you have no understanding of finances, writing this kind of articles using numbers you do not understand rather makes you look like a fool.
james-skemp 14y ago
My first thought was that this would be a real test of what happens to newer consoles where electronic downloads from a (closed) central source (DLC, patches, games) are no longer available. But after reading the article and comments here, I'm not too worried about Sony vanishing quite yet.
- zanny 14y ago
  I don't think Sony could "vanish", more like their valuation falls low enough that someone buys them up at a "steal" for the brand and patent / trademark portfolio if they get cheap enough.
smegel 14y ago
Sony sail flew for far to long on the wind of expensive, high-end TV's. TV's have become cheap, commodity items where "high-end" can now be had for less than $1000, and Sony has not followed up its leadership in the TV market with any other market in a substantial fashion (the relatively niche Playstation market notwithstanding).
josephlord 14y ago
I worked at Sony until about 18 months ago (European TV Product Planning and Business Development getting content onto the TV Internet platform). This data makes it look like it could be going down quicker than I thought but it did have major problems and no clear route through them. I think a lot of the engineering problem is that now the growth has gone there isn't large amounts of fresh recruits bringing new ideas. It also isn't THE place to work anymore which it once was in Japan (think Google 8 years ago levels of cool). The engineers are now mostly managers and outsourcing large amounts of development (particularly software to India). Manufacturing is outsourced so the benefits of having deep understanding of production and being able to optimise the products for that just isn't there. These combined outsourcings may be essential for short term survival but rob further from capability to differentiate and innovate. Exchange rates are also killing Sony (and the other Japanese manufacturers). Massive proportions of their costs are in Japan and inflexible but their income is significantly in dollars and euros. They would be much better off if they spread their costs to regions where their income is. The end of CRTs removed Sony's price premium in TV and Samsung at the high end and LG at the low end are brutal competitors in an industry where no-one is making money. However it is almost impossible to escape the TV industry as that would completely kill all the Sony franchise retailers (and with it a lot of other electronics sales) and any potential position as an entertainment platform/gateway company. It would also be a big admission of defeat and a lot of jobs would disappear. A lack of real leadership has been a core problem but I'm not sure there is any way to fix it now. Don't get me wrong many of the products are still really good and even competitively priced but that doesn't mean Sony is profiting on them. In TVs I think the processing on the mid-high models is better than most competitors and the internet services are pretty competitive but there is a lack of nimbleness and imagination to really take a lead in anything other than picture quality. The PS3 is a good value product these days.
- elchief 14y ago
  Man, I had a Sony Wega CRT, and I seriously couldn't tell the difference between it and the first incarnation of 720 flatscreens.
  - josephlord 14y ago
ekianjo 14y ago
One of my japanese colleagues told me not so long ago: "In the 80s people in Japan were putting Sony stickers on their cars and motorbikes, because it was such a cool Brand. Now nobody would even think about doing it". That's how low Sony has fallen. Take this as a valuable lesson that all successful companies have to learn from: you have to keep fighting, and fight hard, to stay at the Top.
mikecane 14y ago
Also of interest is this: The Ghosts of Sony http://www.japansubculture.com/the-ghosts-of-sony/ http://www.japansubculture.com/the-ghosts-of-sony/ And if you want to see some past glory: This Was Sony http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/this-was-sony/ http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/this-was-sony/
bravoyankee 14y ago
Speaking of decline, I think Apple is starting what will be a epic landslide of biblical proportions. Tim Cook doesn't seem to have any vision at all. The iPhone 5 is a joke. It's a cop out. Tim Cook chickened out when he merely elongated the iPhone. Now Apple has that "blue sky" program in effect for employees, and I'm even more convinced Tim is frantically searching for ideas to show him the way. As for the late Steve Jobs, I was wondering if he had left some future plans for Tim, but apparently not. He was dying. Apple was the most awe-inspiring company in the world under Steve's leadership. He proved his point. I don't think he was concerned about how well Tim would do or even if Apple survives. The show was over for him, and I think it'll soon be over for Apple too.
- gareim 14y ago
  You really believe that Steve Jobs, who was known for his ability to foresee what others in the industry couldn't, didn't plan one year ahead for one of his flagship products? No, the iPhone 5 almost certainly was a Jobs product.
- craigyk 14y ago
  landslide in what fashion? Innovation or income? Steve was awesome, but Apple wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for Tim, or actually all of the upper level execs. Pretty much all of Apple's upper level are rockstars; at least in comparison to their peers in most other companies (excepting Musk). Can they keep it going with Steve gone? I don't know, but their chances are good as long as they recognize cover each other's weaknesses. From what I've seen of Cook so far, I have no doubt he is well aware of what his strengths and weaknesses are so that's hopeful.
- na85 14y ago
  >Apple was the most awe-inspiring company in the world under Steve's leadership. I really don't get the Apple fetish. They make mediocre devices with awful UIs.
kamaal 14y ago
Sony was famous because they made cool eccentric gadgets. Stuff like the Walkman. They still do it, except that that coolness has moved else where(read Apple). Its not that Sony is out. They have a very strong brand. With Steve Jobs gone, Sony is one of those companies which will eat Apple's share of pie. Of course if Apple doesn't innovate hard enough, and just keeps pushing out incremental changes. Want a television? Sony is still the go to brand.
ctdonath 14y ago
As a longtime fanatic and now dismayed ex-user of Sony products, I'm startled at what all the analysis missed: the last 10% of the user interface. What we need is completion of the work done right with followup; what we get is "oh crap, ship it and forget it". A simplistic example: my Sony BluRay player, upon completing any network activity, announces that it has completed the network activity. I don't want to acknowledge that, I want to get on with what I'm obviously going to do next. The same player features streaming video services which, next to Apple TV, look like some techie was told to slap on; the worst offender being the promotion app for "Salt" (movie premiering about the same time as the device) delivers what should be premium video quality in the worst ugliest over compressed dreck form. Time and again it seems they take an otherwise fantastic product, and to meet a deadline slap together what's missing, shove it out the door, and never show any interest in supporting it thereafter.
- prostoalex 14y ago
  Yeah, changing your PlayStation Store password on a PS3 with a PS3 controller is basically half-a-day project. And no, you can't play the game until you've authorized successfully with PlayStation Store because of some stupid add-on that's mandatory.
  - djhworld 14y ago
    Yesterday I put in my credit card details into the PSN store as I wanted to buy the critically acclaimed "Journey" Entering CC details + billing address just using the PS3 controller was an awfully tedious experience. Initially I thought you could add money to your wallet via the PSN website but navigating that was even worse
troymc 14y ago
In March 2010, Wired magazine had an article about how the CEO (Howard Stringer at the time) was going to save Sony. The headline says it all: "Saving Sony: CEO Howard Stringer Plans to Focus on 3-D TV" It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Avatar, the film, came out in December 2009, was 3-D, and was hugely popular. You had to have a 3-D TV to watch it in 3D at home. Other movies were being made in 3D. 3D was the future. And then it wasn't. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_sony_howard_stringer/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_sony_howard_stringe...
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Yes, somehow many people believed 3D TV screens would take off, and then they did not. There were a lot of consumer surveys implying otherwise, however there is no strong incentive to buy them. Could be chicken and Egg problem, or simply the TV technology is not impressive enough to justify the premium.
genuine 14y ago
Sony's problem is that they need the next big thing. They had the Walkman, then the Playstation (and 2 and 3). Outside of that they are just like any other mid-level electronics brand to me. Sony should invent something like a net-enabled helmet as a response to Google's goggles that uses a transparent screen with fluorescing e-ink for night use. Or maybe a personal home theater system where you wear the speakers and the music "moves with you". There really is no excuse not to be original. Fear prohibits success. Lose fear and you will succeed. Risk must be taken. Be creative. These things must be embraced by any culture to succeed.
- josephlord 14y ago
  They are still trying to be innovative but products like this won't save them: http://www.sony.co.uk/product/personal-3d-viewer/hmz-t2 http://www.sony.co.uk/product/personal-3d-viewer/hmz-t2 Yes this is actually a product available now from Sony. Innovative yes but not really likely to succeed. It also contains the personal home theatre system although the screens aren't transparent. Now if they were really joining things up they would be making it into a gaming system to make a lighter, better resolution less laggy virtual reality system than those that knocked around in early nineties. That might actually sell some systems. They need to be profitable in mass market products. But they can't differentiate there any more. They are relying on Google for the software (Android phones and Google TV) for their cutting edge models. They don't have the same degree of in house manufacturing to develop products and production processes at the cutting edge like they used to (Samsung do) and they aren't as good at managing/negotiating outsourced production as Apple are. They do have content but that needs to survive as a business on its own and does exclusive deals with MSO's for TV and Film and anyone for music meaning that there is little exclusive to offer with their products whcih don't even get a much better deal than competitors.
  - genuine 14y ago
    What today's gaming systems are missing are an evolved way to get users involved in game development, the user interface for the system itself. We need paid hardware running a free OS that everyone can contribute to and that is community managed, where the company makes money on the hardware and perhaps a service contract like a RedHat for gaming.
linpythio 14y ago
The consumer market is changing everyday.Sony don't want to change,still sell TV is a problem.
na85 14y ago
Good. I can't friggin stand Sony's business practices, and I hope they crash and burn. They're predatory, arrogant, and self-congratulating. Always a new proprietary device or technology that they will attempt to shove down everyone's throat. Remember MiniDiscs? Or the SonyBMG rootkit thing?
buster 14y ago
People DO realize that Sony is much more then "Playstation"?! I mean, this article is mostly worried about gaming.. Did the author even look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony ?
Tloewald 14y ago
I wonder if it might be more accurate to trace the decline to Sony's purchase of Columbia. There's an intrinsic tension between the interest of the user of an electronic media consumption device and the producer of content, and Sony went from being on the side of the user — e.g. Probably being as annoyed by the tax on cassette tapes as users were — to straddling the fence. Sony was a very successful company in 1989 when it bought Columbia, and its success masked the underlying problem. You might draw an analogy to Apple here — as Apple becomes interested in revenue from content it will face the same tensions (and perhaps already does). Similarly, Apple makes most of its money from carrier subsidies now, and is perhaps perhaps is now as locked into the Evil carrier business model as its predecessors, even if it has thus far avoided junkware.

83 points by akandiah 14y ago

Blaming an engineering-centric culture for bad corporate performance? That's... novel. Sony has only one real problem: Sony. Merging an entertainment conglomerate with a hardware company was a dumb idea, because every product manager at Sony now has to get approval from two completely different companies with two completely different cultures in order to ship anything. At Sony, if the technology isn't proprietary enough, the DRM isn't annoying enough, or there are no clear opportunities to give the customer an enema with a fire hose, the product doesn't fly. Blaming the engineers, wow. Good one.

josephlord 14y ago
I think that maybe the problem was that engineers were encouraged to aim for the next completely wow gadget and become the father of the next Walkman, Playstation... And too little emphasis and reward for progressive minor improvement and polish removing rough edges (particularly in software). I think when software became more important and hardware less Sony didn't have the right balance of people and didn't do enough to adjust it. I worked in TV Product Planning for a long time. There was virtually no contact with the content arms. It was remarkably hard to work with them even when we wanted to. If anything while I was there there was too little co-ordination and collaboration and too much of different parts of the company fighting or just going in opposite directions.
kevingadd 14y ago
I think the article does provide some compelling arguments to support this, though. To quote: -- Sony’s strategy never comes together as a cohesive whole because their engineers are constantly in competition with each other to become famous for creating the next big proprietary format or gadget. There are so many proprietary formats or unnecessary electronics coming out of Sony that it makes Sony’s overall strategy and identity very confusing. The engineers all want to be the guy who creates something as big as the Walkman or PlayStation, they are all competing for that recognition inside of the company. However their ideas are created based on the love for technology, not long-term profitability. On April 2012, Hiroko Tabuchi wrote an article to the New York Times saying, “Sony remains dominated by proud, territorial engineers who often shun cooperation. For many of them, cost-cutting is the enemy of creativity — a legacy of Sony’s co-founders, Mr. Morita and Masaru Ibuka, who tried to foster a culture of independence. But the founders had more success than recent executives in exerting control over division managers.” -- This is certainly plausible, even if it's unfair to blame an engineering focus for Sony's failures. How else can you explain the fact that they STILL insist on using insane proprietary standards like ATRAC and even new Sony devices like the Vita use custom storage instead of standard (far less expensive) storage formats like SD cards? The fact that the PS3's absurd design got greenlit and made it all the way to ship is further evidence that engineers are given freedom to make myopic technology-focused choices.
- dfox 14y ago
  It is painfully simple to find some example of tradition or technology focused engineering without regard to price in almost any piece of Sony hardware. Be it custom Sony ASICs in almost anything, overly complex mechanical constructions, PCB layouts that are optimized for obsolete manufacturing processes (there is certain Japanese layout style, which leads to boards that are insanely expensive to manufacture, at least anywhere outside Japan) or proprietary formats (ATRAC, UMD, MemoryStick ...) and overly complex interfaces (compare Game Cube and PS1/2 controller interface), and tendency to have hardware support for almost never used and often even never implemented features (just look at how much things were dropped in slimed-down versions of each playstation, or for how long did Bravia TV's had MS slot, USB and even later Ethernet ports marked "service only")
  - brusch 14y ago
    can you elaborate on the PCBs ? Just wondering what "Japanese layout style" means. Too many layers ? Not crowded enought ?
    - dfox 14y ago
      Board level: Lots of empty space and jumper wires, mostly single-sided (and single sided boards with screen-printed conductive ink are surprisingly common). Almost OCD approach to service markings. Wave soldered SMT on bottom side of single-sided THT board. Two-sided boards on phenolic paper with screen printed carbon vias. Process testing structures (trace impedance etc.) on each board and not common for whole panel. Incredible amounts of test points each individually marked in silkscreen. Affinity to build complex single-sided boards. Japanese specific components, mostly hybrid ICs combining different standard dies in one package, in Sony's case often completely standard components that are manufactured by Sony itself as second source with completely different markings and sometimes packages and pinouts. System level: boards are mostly not self contained modules but designed all together (I have just seen some Yamaha design that essentially uses board to board connector and whole connected board as jumper wire). Lots of glue logic placed on random boards of whole system. Many instances of mostly empty single-sided boards with only connectors and jumper wires. Complex interconnect topologies between separate boards. In my opinion this comes from history of Japanese electronics manufacturing, they after all started doing SMT in 60's or 70's. All this looks to be optimized for small scale prototyping runs and custom robotic assembly of large series, while most western designs are optimized towards mid-scale series using existing automation. Generally you get designs that look like simple Chinese designs optimized for large scale manual assembly (toys etc.), but are orders of magnitude more complex. Look inside random DVD drive (as most of them are ODM'd by Sony, and by the way, when you want to buy new DVD drive try to find one that has Sony brand, as it is significantly cheaper) to see what I mean, in almost any HP laser printer it is painfully obvious which part is designed by HP and which is unmodified part of Canon's print engine (although there it is mostly because of different manufacturing processes).
meej 14y ago
Actually, for Sony, it's not novel at all. The power and territoriality of Sony's engineers is legendary. I used to work for a wholly-owned Sony subsidiary in the US, and getting any of the engineering groups in Japan to use our company's technology (which was the whole reason Sony bought us in the first place) was an exercise in pulling teeth. That said, it was getting better by the time I left.
dsk2012 14y ago
I agree. It's hard for me to believe that certain directions that Sony took were engineer driven, as opposed to mandated by, say, the entertainment division. Early to mid 2000s was essentially one boneheaded move after another, from music players that didn't play mp3s, to cd rootkits, to UMD movies priced higher than DVDs. I wish I could say hindsight is 20/20 but you could literally see the train wreck happening in realtime, no hindsight needed.
- MBCook 14y ago
  As a Sony fan I remember watching their MP3 stumbling and being amazed. Even after MP3s got large traction, Sony continued to push MiniDiscs (which were a nice format in their day). As flash cards got bigger and you could start to put multiple albums on a single card, MiniDiscs still only held one (unless you really sacrificed sound quality). Eventually Sony bended to the MP3 trend by releasing a new MiniDisc player with MP3 compatibility. Remember CD players that would play burned CDs of MP3 files? Sony's worked by hooking the device up to your computer where it would transcode the MP3s into a proprietary Sony format and then put those on the disc. It was one step above setting the thing up next to your speakers and pressing "record". They did the same kind of nonsense with flash based MP3 players, where they never made any kind of dent for the same reasons. Their devices wouldn't play MP3s natively until (I believe) years after the iPod came out. They said what they have so often: "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead". What they keep finding out is that no one is following them, and the torpedoes are really doing damage to their ship. BluRay is the only thing I can remember them winning on. It was technically superior, but it also got a huge boost from the PS3 (which, remember, they were selling at a $250-$300 loss at first). Even then, as people shift to BluRay the market is crumbling to streaming video.
tangue 14y ago
"Bad corporate performance" : you've hit the nail. Remember when Sony publicly adopt Objective-C and GnuStep for a week before canceling it ? [1] This is symptomatic of a dysfunctional organization. Not a content vs hardware problem. http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/27/sony_adopts_then_drops_cocoa_like_gnustep_plans_to_rival_apple_ios.html http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/27/sony_adopts_then_d...
jessedhillon 14y ago
Did you work at Sony, or do you have some source for the claims you're making there? It seems that you're asserting a favorable worldview -- engineer-driven culture can't be bad -- and then adding a post-hoc justification about media and hardware companies, and what sort of perverse incentives you think that pairing would create. Is your comment just speculation?
bjornsing 14y ago
Yea, this was the part of the article I was missing too. I worked for Sony Computer Entertainment for a period around 2005. I can partly see the "engineering-centric in a bad way" thing, but to put the blame there for Sony failing to launch an MP3 player before Apple... Seriously, Sony Music killed it of course.

deleted 14y ago

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carlcoryell 14y ago

Sony still hasn't apologized for multiple installations of rootkits on customer computers. I lost all interest in the company after they made those choices and I'm glad to see that a culture that tolerates such enmity towards their customers and disregard for copyright (they were illegally using GPL software in their rootkits as well) isn't doing well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...

ekianjo 14y ago
And they lost me as an online service customer (and probably others, too) with the password-and-PI-stored-in-plain-text scandal a little while ago. Gaining one customer is hard, but losing them is very, very easy.
dhughes 14y ago
Me too. I know when I compare electronics I skip right over Sony it's just second nature at this point.
cryptoz 14y ago
You're waiting for an apology? Last I heard, the President of that division said he didn't understand why everyone was so mad. "Nobody knows what a rootkit is anyway, why should they care?" I don't think we're ever going to get an apology from them. If we did, it sure wouldn't make up for anything or change my mind about them. They're evil bloodsucking monsters bent on the destruction of quality technology. I've been boycotting them since '05 due to that scandal. Fuck Sony.

dsr_ 14y ago

Sony builds great products, and never follows up well. They poison their own name. Walkman: the original portable media player. They improved battery life, they improved sound, they captured the high-end of the market and inspired competitors... but they could never reduce price while keeping sufficient quality to differentiate a genuine Walkman from a 60% cheaper competitor. Did they keep the high end? Sure, but they also produced crap indistinguishable from their competitors at the low end... Repeat for CD players. Repeat for DVD players. Repeat for the VAIO laptops. Remember when a VAIO was always a high-performance ultra-portable? Now it means everything they do in computers.

ekianjo 14y ago
Yeah, exactly. That's called Brand Dilution. Or Brand Flushing, in this particular case.

tvwonline 14y ago

I feel Sony never made the transition to software. I have owned a lot of Sony products over the years and the older devices I had like VCRs (which had little software) where infinitely better. For example the a Blu-ray/Surround Sound System I bought a couple of months ago is terrible and maybe one of the worst products I have ever bought. It takes 60 seconds to boot up (So the Sony TV turns on and is displaying with in 5 seconds, but there is no sound through the sound system for a minute!!!) in addition, the DLNA client on the unit often becomes unresponsive and refuses to accept simple pause commands while watching video. In today's world, if you can't do software well, you will fail. PS: I loved my Minidisc player back in 1999 - I was sad it didn't have more success, well, up until I got my first iPod.

sxcurry 14y ago
Totally agree - my new Sony Blu-ray player may be electronically OK, but boy the software/firmware is awful. Horrible interface, slow startup, crummy remote, and an obtrusive software update notice that pops up a few minutes into a DVD. My new flat screen TV was a Samsung - I'm just not going to buy any more Sony gear, and I don't think they will survive.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
"I feel Sony never made the transition to software." Actually it might be more accurate to say Sony has yet to make the transition to 'systems' away from 'solutions'. I also found it kind of funny a person talks about Game Consoles when talking about Sony, that is a small part of Sony, historically Sony has sold products where they manufactured all of the key technologies. They were one of the first vertically integrated companies that I encountered. It can be very powerful to be integrated in that way because you control your own destiny, you make your own screens, you make your own electronics, you make your own machines to make your products. They got disrupted by the Koreans and the Chinese who started picking out 'parts' of the things that Sony made and making those so that others could build 'Sony like' products without having to be vertically integrated. Samsung, Quanta, LG, Hyundai, Etc. All willing to sell the part you want against the others selling the same part, defacto standards emerge, change happens at the feature level not the function level. Everyone starts selling a 'flat screen' TV and while we argue over Plasma vs LCD we get motion compensation, viewing angle improvements, contrast tweaks, Etc. So many things Sony did, and then tried to 'lock in' control. Their e-readers, their computers, their TVs, their media players, their game consoles. Lock in gave them control but people generally start rejecting external controls at about age 13 and rarely get more complacent as they get older :-). It will be very interesting to see how they evolve (or don't). But their asset ratios aren't a problem it is their execution that is a problem.

ekianjo 14y ago

Not a bad article, but obviously not written by someone who has much background in Finance nor Business. Saying that "Sony has a culture where it is OK to fail" is laughable, for example. How many companies out there are widely successful? Most of product launches are so-so or fail to meet their objectives, yet you do not see companies firing everyone every 6 months. Iterations are necessary until you hopefully find a good proposition. It takes time to get a hit. Now that's no excuse for Sony to keep pushing bad products out of their chains, but of course, every company allows employees to fail at least a few times. R&D is about trial and error. Then I think the author is deeply wrong about quoting iSupply as a reliable source for the cost of hardware. iSupply has NO idea of what the hardware actually costs. They simply open a parts catalog and check how much each part would be sold, one by one, and add it up. That is downright ridiculous, because when Sony buys chips for their Playstation, they tell the supplier: "Make me THIS price because I will buy 10 millions of your chips" and they have huge advantage in negociations. So, iSupply and nobody else apart from the supplier and Sony themselves know the real Bill of Materials. The rest is pure speculations. And saying Sony does not care about budget and is focused on engineers only sounds false to me. If that was the case why would they produce their Playstation outside of Japan? The Playstation 1 and 2 were the examples of frequent cost reduction through their lifetime - just like the PS3 did as well, with a big step down in price from the earlier years. I am pretty sure Sony does not LOSE money on PS Vita either, and probably keep some margin there to reduce the price later. Net, they are not losing money with the Vita, and there is no need to "kill" it. They may need to further invest in it, rather, for it to become a reasonably successful machine, but I am afraid they do not have much cash to heavily support it seeing their overall financial shape. Finally, showing Return of Assets alone is meaningless. You have to compare Ra from one business to another business in the same fields. Ra only makes sense in comparison. Let me add as well that comparing liabilities between Software heavy companies (like Google and Microsoft) does not make ANY sense, since Google and Microsoft do not own plants and manufacture much themselves (their may businesses are advertising and second, software). It would make much more sense to compare Sony's liabilities with Panasonic, Sharp, Mitsubishi... while there is not actual company that covers the exact same range of businesses as Sony. Seriously, when you have no understanding of finances, writing this kind of articles using numbers you do not understand rather makes you look like a fool.

james-skemp 14y ago

My first thought was that this would be a real test of what happens to newer consoles where electronic downloads from a (closed) central source (DLC, patches, games) are no longer available. But after reading the article and comments here, I'm not too worried about Sony vanishing quite yet.

zanny 14y ago
I don't think Sony could "vanish", more like their valuation falls low enough that someone buys them up at a "steal" for the brand and patent / trademark portfolio if they get cheap enough.

smegel 14y ago

Sony sail flew for far to long on the wind of expensive, high-end TV's. TV's have become cheap, commodity items where "high-end" can now be had for less than $1000, and Sony has not followed up its leadership in the TV market with any other market in a substantial fashion (the relatively niche Playstation market notwithstanding).

josephlord 14y ago

I worked at Sony until about 18 months ago (European TV Product Planning and Business Development getting content onto the TV Internet platform). This data makes it look like it could be going down quicker than I thought but it did have major problems and no clear route through them. I think a lot of the engineering problem is that now the growth has gone there isn't large amounts of fresh recruits bringing new ideas. It also isn't THE place to work anymore which it once was in Japan (think Google 8 years ago levels of cool). The engineers are now mostly managers and outsourcing large amounts of development (particularly software to India). Manufacturing is outsourced so the benefits of having deep understanding of production and being able to optimise the products for that just isn't there. These combined outsourcings may be essential for short term survival but rob further from capability to differentiate and innovate. Exchange rates are also killing Sony (and the other Japanese manufacturers). Massive proportions of their costs are in Japan and inflexible but their income is significantly in dollars and euros. They would be much better off if they spread their costs to regions where their income is. The end of CRTs removed Sony's price premium in TV and Samsung at the high end and LG at the low end are brutal competitors in an industry where no-one is making money. However it is almost impossible to escape the TV industry as that would completely kill all the Sony franchise retailers (and with it a lot of other electronics sales) and any potential position as an entertainment platform/gateway company. It would also be a big admission of defeat and a lot of jobs would disappear. A lack of real leadership has been a core problem but I'm not sure there is any way to fix it now. Don't get me wrong many of the products are still really good and even competitively priced but that doesn't mean Sony is profiting on them. In TVs I think the processing on the mid-high models is better than most competitors and the internet services are pretty competitive but there is a lack of nimbleness and imagination to really take a lead in anything other than picture quality. The PS3 is a good value product these days.

elchief 14y ago
Man, I had a Sony Wega CRT, and I seriously couldn't tell the difference between it and the first incarnation of 720 flatscreens.
- josephlord 14y ago

ekianjo 14y ago

One of my japanese colleagues told me not so long ago: "In the 80s people in Japan were putting Sony stickers on their cars and motorbikes, because it was such a cool Brand. Now nobody would even think about doing it". That's how low Sony has fallen. Take this as a valuable lesson that all successful companies have to learn from: you have to keep fighting, and fight hard, to stay at the Top.

mikecane 14y ago

Also of interest is this: The Ghosts of Sony http://www.japansubculture.com/the-ghosts-of-sony/ http://www.japansubculture.com/the-ghosts-of-sony/ And if you want to see some past glory: This Was Sony http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/this-was-sony/ http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/this-was-sony/

bravoyankee 14y ago

Speaking of decline, I think Apple is starting what will be a epic landslide of biblical proportions. Tim Cook doesn't seem to have any vision at all. The iPhone 5 is a joke. It's a cop out. Tim Cook chickened out when he merely elongated the iPhone. Now Apple has that "blue sky" program in effect for employees, and I'm even more convinced Tim is frantically searching for ideas to show him the way. As for the late Steve Jobs, I was wondering if he had left some future plans for Tim, but apparently not. He was dying. Apple was the most awe-inspiring company in the world under Steve's leadership. He proved his point. I don't think he was concerned about how well Tim would do or even if Apple survives. The show was over for him, and I think it'll soon be over for Apple too.

gareim 14y ago
You really believe that Steve Jobs, who was known for his ability to foresee what others in the industry couldn't, didn't plan one year ahead for one of his flagship products? No, the iPhone 5 almost certainly was a Jobs product.
craigyk 14y ago
landslide in what fashion? Innovation or income? Steve was awesome, but Apple wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for Tim, or actually all of the upper level execs. Pretty much all of Apple's upper level are rockstars; at least in comparison to their peers in most other companies (excepting Musk). Can they keep it going with Steve gone? I don't know, but their chances are good as long as they recognize cover each other's weaknesses. From what I've seen of Cook so far, I have no doubt he is well aware of what his strengths and weaknesses are so that's hopeful.
na85 14y ago
>Apple was the most awe-inspiring company in the world under Steve's leadership. I really don't get the Apple fetish. They make mediocre devices with awful UIs.

kamaal 14y ago

Sony was famous because they made cool eccentric gadgets. Stuff like the Walkman. They still do it, except that that coolness has moved else where(read Apple). Its not that Sony is out. They have a very strong brand. With Steve Jobs gone, Sony is one of those companies which will eat Apple's share of pie. Of course if Apple doesn't innovate hard enough, and just keeps pushing out incremental changes. Want a television? Sony is still the go to brand.

ctdonath 14y ago

As a longtime fanatic and now dismayed ex-user of Sony products, I'm startled at what all the analysis missed: the last 10% of the user interface. What we need is completion of the work done right with followup; what we get is "oh crap, ship it and forget it". A simplistic example: my Sony BluRay player, upon completing any network activity, announces that it has completed the network activity. I don't want to acknowledge that, I want to get on with what I'm obviously going to do next. The same player features streaming video services which, next to Apple TV, look like some techie was told to slap on; the worst offender being the promotion app for "Salt" (movie premiering about the same time as the device) delivers what should be premium video quality in the worst ugliest over compressed dreck form. Time and again it seems they take an otherwise fantastic product, and to meet a deadline slap together what's missing, shove it out the door, and never show any interest in supporting it thereafter.

prostoalex 14y ago
Yeah, changing your PlayStation Store password on a PS3 with a PS3 controller is basically half-a-day project. And no, you can't play the game until you've authorized successfully with PlayStation Store because of some stupid add-on that's mandatory.
- djhworld 14y ago
  Yesterday I put in my credit card details into the PSN store as I wanted to buy the critically acclaimed "Journey" Entering CC details + billing address just using the PS3 controller was an awfully tedious experience. Initially I thought you could add money to your wallet via the PSN website but navigating that was even worse

troymc 14y ago

In March 2010, Wired magazine had an article about how the CEO (Howard Stringer at the time) was going to save Sony. The headline says it all: "Saving Sony: CEO Howard Stringer Plans to Focus on 3-D TV" It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Avatar, the film, came out in December 2009, was 3-D, and was hugely popular. You had to have a 3-D TV to watch it in 3D at home. Other movies were being made in 3D. 3D was the future. And then it wasn't. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_sony_howard_stringer/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_sony_howard_stringe...

ekianjo 14y ago
Yes, somehow many people believed 3D TV screens would take off, and then they did not. There were a lot of consumer surveys implying otherwise, however there is no strong incentive to buy them. Could be chicken and Egg problem, or simply the TV technology is not impressive enough to justify the premium.

genuine 14y ago

Sony's problem is that they need the next big thing. They had the Walkman, then the Playstation (and 2 and 3). Outside of that they are just like any other mid-level electronics brand to me. Sony should invent something like a net-enabled helmet as a response to Google's goggles that uses a transparent screen with fluorescing e-ink for night use. Or maybe a personal home theater system where you wear the speakers and the music "moves with you". There really is no excuse not to be original. Fear prohibits success. Lose fear and you will succeed. Risk must be taken. Be creative. These things must be embraced by any culture to succeed.

josephlord 14y ago
They are still trying to be innovative but products like this won't save them: http://www.sony.co.uk/product/personal-3d-viewer/hmz-t2 http://www.sony.co.uk/product/personal-3d-viewer/hmz-t2 Yes this is actually a product available now from Sony. Innovative yes but not really likely to succeed. It also contains the personal home theatre system although the screens aren't transparent. Now if they were really joining things up they would be making it into a gaming system to make a lighter, better resolution less laggy virtual reality system than those that knocked around in early nineties. That might actually sell some systems. They need to be profitable in mass market products. But they can't differentiate there any more. They are relying on Google for the software (Android phones and Google TV) for their cutting edge models. They don't have the same degree of in house manufacturing to develop products and production processes at the cutting edge like they used to (Samsung do) and they aren't as good at managing/negotiating outsourced production as Apple are. They do have content but that needs to survive as a business on its own and does exclusive deals with MSO's for TV and Film and anyone for music meaning that there is little exclusive to offer with their products whcih don't even get a much better deal than competitors.
- genuine 14y ago
  What today's gaming systems are missing are an evolved way to get users involved in game development, the user interface for the system itself. We need paid hardware running a free OS that everyone can contribute to and that is community managed, where the company makes money on the hardware and perhaps a service contract like a RedHat for gaming.

linpythio 14y ago

The consumer market is changing everyday.Sony don't want to change,still sell TV is a problem.

na85 14y ago

Good. I can't friggin stand Sony's business practices, and I hope they crash and burn. They're predatory, arrogant, and self-congratulating. Always a new proprietary device or technology that they will attempt to shove down everyone's throat. Remember MiniDiscs? Or the SonyBMG rootkit thing?

buster 14y ago

People DO realize that Sony is much more then "Playstation"?! I mean, this article is mostly worried about gaming.. Did the author even look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony ?

Tloewald 14y ago

I wonder if it might be more accurate to trace the decline to Sony's purchase of Columbia. There's an intrinsic tension between the interest of the user of an electronic media consumption device and the producer of content, and Sony went from being on the side of the user — e.g. Probably being as annoyed by the tax on cassette tapes as users were — to straddling the fence. Sony was a very successful company in 1989 when it bought Columbia, and its success masked the underlying problem. You might draw an analogy to Apple here — as Apple becomes interested in revenue from content it will face the same tensions (and perhaps already does). Similarly, Apple makes most of its money from carrier subsidies now, and is perhaps perhaps is now as locked into the Evil carrier business model as its predecessors, even if it has thus far avoided junkware.