3 ms·

I'll tell you the secret why: Sony aggressively expanded in the 80's and got into the media business. The values couldn't and didn't align. The idea is the sy

I'll tell you the secret why: Sony aggressively expanded in the 80's and got into the media business. The values couldn't and didn't align. The idea is the synergy of Sony electronics and Sony entertainment would create something amazing but the reality was Sony electronics and Sony entertainment couldn't, wouldn't, and didn't play together. Whatever the electronics side made, even if technically better than anything on market, had to be locked down to appease the entertainment side. But the entertainment side didn't get big enough to be making such demands. Sony also didn't make the jump to digital as fast as it could so upstarts were able to come in. I remember the transition from minidisc to MP3 player. THAT WAS PAINFUL and did not need to happen. Nor the subsequent jumps of oh hey, buy content again and again as different formats to fit into your playstation or your TV or your walkman. There's a massive treasure chest, massive inertia, massive momentum, and again... it's freakin' amazing to me how much we clutch our little black mirrors and how central everything has been. I'm rooting for a Wintel underdog comback.

walterbell 12y ago
>I'm rooting for a Wintel underdog comback. Yes, if only because Wintel has a history of relative openness and backward compatibility. However, the new Microsoft board is going in a different direction, prioritizing cloud and cross-platform over Windows. Hence Win10 will be cheap/free and continually updated by the cloud without notice, i.e. it becomes a non-deterministic magic box. Businesses will have to pay for Windows not to change.
- alaskamiller 12y ago
  You're assuming those two things are survival traits
hrktb 12y ago
Personally I would make a lot of sacrificies to have a super solid software/hardware solution. Where sony lost me was the abyssimal software quality of their products. Ignore the DRM, ignore the licensing limitations. Their music management software was clunky, limited, slow, had critical bugs and barely had enough functionnalities to be usable. I was loosing my time clicking and dragging everywhere to transfer my music, the NetMD went to a drawer and I bought an ipod. I just seems so hard for traditional big japanese companies to benefit from talented developpers. Their laptop line has/had good specs, but the windows integration is perfectible at best. I can't imagine trying to update the drivers or doing anything non sanctionned on them. One of my relatives has one, and my MBA performs better 4 years down the line while it went out roughly at the same time for the same price. I don't see wintel becoming an underdog anytime soon, but I'd love ubuntu in this role.

walterbell 12y ago

>I'm rooting for a Wintel underdog comback. Yes, if only because Wintel has a history of relative openness and backward compatibility. However, the new Microsoft board is going in a different direction, prioritizing cloud and cross-platform over Windows. Hence Win10 will be cheap/free and continually updated by the cloud without notice, i.e. it becomes a non-deterministic magic box. Businesses will have to pay for Windows not to change.

alaskamiller 12y ago
You're assuming those two things are survival traits

hrktb 12y ago

Personally I would make a lot of sacrificies to have a super solid software/hardware solution. Where sony lost me was the abyssimal software quality of their products. Ignore the DRM, ignore the licensing limitations. Their music management software was clunky, limited, slow, had critical bugs and barely had enough functionnalities to be usable. I was loosing my time clicking and dragging everywhere to transfer my music, the NetMD went to a drawer and I bought an ipod. I just seems so hard for traditional big japanese companies to benefit from talented developpers. Their laptop line has/had good specs, but the windows integration is perfectible at best. I can't imagine trying to update the drivers or doing anything non sanctionned on them. One of my relatives has one, and my MBA performs better 4 years down the line while it went out roughly at the same time for the same price. I don't see wintel becoming an underdog anytime soon, but I'd love ubuntu in this role.