Sony Ericsson introducing Walkman cellphones
posted Feb 14th 2005 3:21PM
Remember how the other day Sony Ericsson said that 2005 is
all about listening to music on cellphones? Yeah, well they're cashing in on the Sony part of their parentage with
a new line of Walkman-branded music playing cellphones. They don't have any prototypes or pics or anything to show off,
but they did announce today at the big 3GSM World Congress (which is why there is so much damn cellphone news) that
they're going to introduce the line in March. They say the phones will have large amounts of memory, good headphones,
the ability to easily transfer songs over from a PC, and will work with Sony's Connect online music store. Potentially
a very smart move, but they better not fumble this; the once mighty Walkman brand name has taken enough of a beating in
the past few years already, you know?
[Thanks, Eric]
"But Sony's strategy is evolving. Don't worry about (proprietary) ATRAC"
w00t. an sd slot instead of (proprietary) memorystick would be nice too
It's a good idea: the Walkman brand name still has value, and most people know what it is.
So when someone mentions that a phone is a walkman phone, I think people will instantly know what that means.
What I would really like to see is Sony put bluetooth in their network walkman's, so you could be listening to your walkman and talk on the phone through your headphones. That would be nice.
Cool! Can I put my Journey and Lover Boy cassettes on my cell phone now??
Sony can still trump Apple in portable music if they come up with far better cell phones with music capabilities.
And judging from what Moto seems to be putting out with iTunes support, Sony may just do that.
Cell phones have such a far larger customer base than iPods. If Sony can outflank the iTunes phones, they may yet win the war.
I thought the PSP was the new Walkman. These phones sound like they have better music functions that the huge PSP.
As much as I want it, Hell will freeze over before there is a SD slot in a SE phone.
As for Walkman Cellphone, I hope playing music will not affect the battery life too much otherwise it is pointless
I do get slightly bored of people describing Memory Stick as proprietary. Sony are not the only manufacturers of the sticks (indeed, my SE P910 came with a SanDisk MS Duo Pro). Granted the vast majority of devices that take MemoryStick are Sony -- but on the other hand the best selling digital cameras (which are the best selling devices that take flash memory) are, by some margin, Sony. I suspect if we look at the flash memory market as a whole, Sony probably has the largest single share. Christ (Mel Gibson) knows why the sticks cost twice as much as SD though...
I hope they do this right! -With models across a broad range of price positions.
I hope they blow Nokia, Motorola and Apple away!
And I hope they keep them Symbian-based!
#8 Rich
Well put!
In reference to the comment in quotes in my post."Sony can still trump Apple in portable music if they come up with far better cell phones with music capabilities." Sony WILL NOT EVER stomp apple in the portable media market. One word "itunes". and to back my arguement is they are going to win this war or portables, dont expect it this year or even next. 65% of the market is apple ipod, ipod = harddrive based... cellphone = solid state memory.... Don't expect anything exciting to happen until they have harddrive based cell phones. Thats my take... and here is abther few.
Apple already has itunes support and alot of people use itunes, to add cell phone capabilities into the itunes the program is as simple as releasing an update that automatically downloads. Whereas Sony, will have to build a program, and then get people to install it. and learn it. Basically what I am saying is, Apple has already penetrating the market very effectively holding 65% of it, and Im sure that percentage is higher for % of people that use itunes. Therefore, I can't see the consumer getting new software and learning it, instead of just using what they already have.
Here is a way of thinking about it... 80%+ of people use windows, and windows is pretty lousy. Windows has penetrated the market effictively and futhermore despite all the downfalls that a user has when using windows, you dont see people switching to apple. so the moral of this story in the portable world is, apple is going to have to F'up royally and Sony is going to have to think of something Royally Genius inorder to get a foot up on apple.
p.s. Sony is begging apple to use their OS, or at least that is the rumor echoing around the net.
p.s.s I am a windows user and xbox gamer, so if your going to argue that I love apple, and hate windows please take a different route.
Thanks! -Nic
in reference to the previous post "Don't expect anything exciting to happen until they have harddrive based cell phones"
i don't think this will ever happen. right now people are buying flash players to use in activites that a hdd based player will not work in(running, snowboarding,etc). most people i know snowboard with a cell phone in a pocket, as well as an mp3 player. the cell phone will probably soon take over this market, and it should. but a cell phone needs to be durable, and a hdd based cell phone is not. cell phones will not take over the hdd player market until they have 20+ gigs of solid state memory, which i don't see happening for a long time
Nic: thanks for the thoughtful comments. However, on some points I respectfully disagree.
My point is that the cell phone market is distinctly different and larger than the current market for iPods and other DAPs. Sure, Apple has huge market share for DAPs right now, but the number of people owning iPods is small compared to the number of people using cell phones.
So if someone can integrate a viable music capability with their cell phone line and create a winning convergence product, that product can effectively sell far more units than the iPod very easily, because the market for cell phones is so much larger.
As for the memory issue with cell phones, yes, that needs to improve in order to get a good music player into cell phones, but let's face it, technology marches on and the trend is, as it always has been, clearly towards more memory at lower cost. So I believe that problem will eventually be resolved with normal advancement. Whether the solution is solid state memory with far greater capacity or smaller, cheaper, hard drives with greater capacity, it really doesn't matter...the solution will present itself. It won't be very long until cell phones will be able to incorporate a large amount of memory for a relatively reasonable cost.
As to Apple being able to "add cell phone capabilities into the itunes the program"...I don't quite know what you mean, except I assume you mean cell phone support. So yes Apple can easily have iTunes load songs into compatible cell phones. But the difficult part is getting good iTunes cell phones to the market. It's not enough to have the software support in iTunes; the hardware has to be there as well. Right now Motorola seems to be dropping the ball, opening up a window of opportunity for other companies.
As to Apple having such a dominant position that it can't lose it unless it makes a major mistake, well, consider how many other products have been huge one day and become outdated, obsolete, and unwanted soon after. That's a very familiar story. Remember the Palm Pilot? At one point it enjoyed a status very similar to today's iPod.
The Windows analogy doesn't hold, because Windows does have the huge share among the market of all PCs. What I'm saying is that Apple doesn't begin to have the DAP market sewn up, simply because there are too few people who have DAPs right now. The market is still up for grabs. And the cell phone could, for many people, become their DAP of choice. That is an opportunity for a company like Sony to grab, if it executes well. Of course, they'd have to come up with some great phone designs, improve their software, and have some killer marketing. But the opportunity is surely there.
Dick,
"And I hope they keep them Symbian-based!"
Your statement suggests that Sony(Ericsson) phones are already Symbian-based. Only the P series use Symbian, while the vast majority use a proprietary SoneEricsson OS. T, K, Z series, it's all proprietary.
The comments on the size of the accessible market are absolutely true. Nokia has announced a deal with MSoft as they try and break into the portable music (DAP) market.
We'll see how it shakes out and you can see how things are evolving...Sony+Ericsson, Moto+Apple, Nokia+Microsoft+Loudeye. There's a couple of other factors as well, namely driven by consumer behaviour. There needs to be sufficient memory capacity in the handsets, the audio quality needs to improve as does battery life. And the devices need to look cooler and more "iconic". Only then will a cellphone compete strongly with other DAPs. BUT - One of the big problems cellphone manufacturers/carriers have is they will strangle the mobile music market with DRM and the like. It has to be open.
I also think we will see strong improvements in converged devices as well, Sony PSP will be a benchmark for a while at least.
Not that I don't love the current thread but I'm a little confused as to what "beating" the Walkman brandname has taken recently. I realize it's not exactly dominating the market but it's no Ford Edsel.
i love that ideal i think its a good ideal 7 i hope it wont be cost in nigeria soi can buy my own. thanks