Sony exec sees Eee-like PCs as having potentially negative impact on industry
By Ryan Block 
posted February 27th 2008 4:19PM
posted February 27th 2008 4:19PM
So at Sony's Open House we were having lunch with Mike Abary, Sony's US SVP of Information Technology Products Division, who oversees Vaio computers (among numerous other things). Of course, the inevitable question came up about the Eee PC's success thus far, and what that means to computer companies on the higher end of the spectrum, like Sony. Mike's response was a little surprising, but certainly sensible enough: if consumer expectations begins to weigh too heavily toward the $300 end of PCs, he believes that kind of consumer adoption would have a profoundly negative impact on the industry, referring to its effect as "a race to the bottom."We know there are a lot of Eee fans in the house, but the man makes sense. Sony isn't trashing ultra-cheap machines so much as recognizing that it's hard to push things forward when your primary objective becomes making the very cheapest possible machine you can (and not very best). Innovation is hard enough to subsidize, but when your already thin margins flatten even further in trying to sell ultra-cheap machines, it's easy to see the economics working against tech companies. (Asus has less to worry about here because its primary business is making PCs for other companies.) Of course, the reality is that ultra-cheap machines probably won't soon envelop the lion's share of computer sales and threaten what most think of as "real" PCs, so we probably don't have to worry about the industry bottoming out because of the Eee. False advertising and abusive trialware, however, are different stories entirely.
Okay Sony, release a high-end subnotebook in the EEE form-factor and I'll buy it. The TZ's sexy, but too big of a footprint.
How making either the very best machine as cheap as possible, or making the best possible cheapest machine?
Shut up, Sony. You don't know what you're talking about. Go back to your marketing schemes, which I'll ignore, and I'll go back to using old tech, which I wish you would ignore.
I'm happy with my Eee, a desktop at work and a desktop at home.
I use the Eee when I travel, to read mail, touch up a presentation, browse my fav forums, and listen to music / watch films to amuse me during those long flights / stays in airports / stays in hotels alone. It lets me have the full power of a PC (admittedly, not a fast one, but the Xandros the Eee runs on is very much optimised and runs without slowing) with me in a package of 1 kg which I can carry ìn my office bag without carrying another bag. I could do the same with a Vaio or Mac for sure, but do I need to? No. And the 1000+ EUR in my purse can be spent on other matters.
Would I buy an Eee as a primary computer? No, I need to run PS at home and other very heavy apps at work, and I need lots of RAM and lots of monitor space. But as a walkaround laptop, for my needs, it's unbeatable. I have been waiting for this for several years, and am glad to see that somebody listened to consumers' needs for once.
OMG. You sound just like me. And you have my name. If you have the 4G in Pink, I think I've found my twin.
And heck yeah. I have been longing for an Eee. I've had dreams of sticking a laptop in my purse (that doesn't cost an arm and a leg) and now I can do just that.
A twin? Pink Eee? Consider that in Italy Andrea is a male name :D
Andrea comes from the greek word anēr, andrós which means "man".
But, I am glad you feel the same way :)
Sony is so completely out of touch with consumers. This is yet another PERFECT example.
What strikes me as odd is how ENGADGET is seemingly out of touch as well. You actually AGREE with him? Might want to sleep on that one...
It's Ryan. He's pretty much a communist.
Dear Mr. Abary:
I believe you may miss the point a little. As pointed out above, the inexpensive UMPC units fill a niche that a 14" laptop does not fill. So I won't belabor that. What I would like to point out is a possible misconception:
Perhaps the folks buying the Eee en masse are actually pouring more money into Asus so that they can develop new product. I'm guessing that they are seeing in the neighborhood $100/unit of profit for a popular item. That's not chicken feed.
I own several laptops (including an Eee). While I've looked at your Sony products the cost:value ratio was not in my favor (inlcuding your portable media devices). Other laptops deliver more for less.
Sure, having a lid that has a serpentine VAIO etched across the top may be geek chic, but I don't buy sexy. I buy devices that meet my needs (not Sony's budgetary needs), that are durable (all of my Walkmen broke within 6 months of moderate use, but my Sony TV is working for the most part, but there is a lot of red in the picture even after adjusting), and that is AFFORDABLE. I shouldn't have to have a "payment plant" or a second mortgage to buy a laptop. Geesh.
Thank you.
Sony have reason to worry. Not because the race to the bottom will involve everyone, but because they are in one of the most vulnerable positions.
Traditional methods of fighting price erosion involve branding and innovation. Sony have been draining their brand for a while now without replenishing it and it will run out on them entirely if they are not careful. Their hands are tied with innovation because they don't actually own the user experience of their product and Microsoft have failed to drive new usage patterns through hardware demanding apps.
Their best chance now is to own this future CCE PC market (Commodity Consumer Electronics PCs) as they have a strong history in CE and it would be easier to reclaim the user experience (e.g. customised Shell over Linux)
http://oli.gaymond.co.uk/tech/sony-fear-eee-pc/
These kind of comments from Sony are really inapropriate. Who are they to say what is good for the industry? The industry is there for one purpose only - to fulfill the needs of the customer. If it turns out that the customer wants a cheaper, less powerful machine then it only means that the next step will be to reduce the costs instead of trying to fill a notebook with HD optical drives and multicore processors. There will always be a market for this kind of computers. Personally I enjoy using powerful hardware, even if it means I have to spend more - a lot of people feel the same.
The main goal of a company should be to create hardware that people want to use/buy, not to dictate what they believe is the next best thing. I think the Eee PC is a wondeful idea - I'm a college teacher in Poland (where students are far less wealthy than in the US) and I see a tremendous potential for such devices. Finally a well built notebook that the average student can afford, and it comes with preinstalled OpenOffice - great!
This statement from Sony sounds really pretentious - is it such a bad thing that customers will buy a less powerful machine that suits their needs? Should they save for another few months just to have an overpriced Vaio on which they will perform the very same tasks (granted, at a lower speed)?
last paragraph: lower = higher - sorry for the mistake
Perhaps Sony should start marketing towards consumers instead of just making powerful laptops expecting everyone to buy them? If there's a race to the bottom it's because people have realized that they don't need a Dual Core laptop, with 2+ GBs of RAM, an advanced video card and what not just to do what they need to do.
One of my friends have a EEE PC, he loves it (though he's jealous of my n800 lol). Another friend who has a (I think Toshiba or Dell) laptop that's starting to die out. She's had to replace the screen and battery now, if anything else breaks it'll be better to just buy a new laptop and she's thinking about an EEE PC. Why? Because for what she uses it for she doesn't need an expensive laptop. She and my friend are both computer science majors but when they compile and run the code they do it through Putty on the Linux servers at Maryland.
If Sony can't learn to adapt to the changing market and can only complain about the EEE PC's negative impact on industry, perhaps they shouldn't be in the laptop business. Would it mean that maybe innovation slows down? Maybe. But if anything that's good for the consumers and bad for business. But oh wait, that's why they're complaining.
if the eee didn't undercut the vaio UX's price so much, sony wouldnt be complaining.
If Dell was saying this, I would totally believe it...
BUT SONY???? how about lowering your prices and stop charging a premium for you "50 year old name recognition"???
Race to the bottom? I was a teenager when win95 came out and I saw newer computers perform sluggishly, bsod all the time, and the hardware was significantly less reliable than the solid 486 computers (admittedly, those were less complex). That was more like a face plant to the bottom than a race.
How about the fancy vaio my dad has that is bulging at all the edges? Gimme an inexpensive, portable, USEFUL computer any day! sony can stfu on this one.
Remember when Sony was saying people are going to get a second job just to afford a Ps3 due to the technological market it was??
Ps3= a very far away 3rd from the cheap #1 Nintendo.
They also said last year that "cheap LCDs were bad for the market" sure YOUR market, buying a $1300 42" LCD versus your 120fps 32" $2500 LCD...
or how about Atrac3??
"Race to the bottom" was exactly how blu-ray evangelicals describe Toshiba's pricing strategy to try to get HD-DVD to beat Blu-ray in that format war.
Ummm, yeah. And Ballimer called linux a "cancer" yet it seems that since people started showing interest in linux the major OS's have pretty much consistently gotten better and have even borrowed from linux. Whatever!
I remember when a was a kid, my dad would always say our tv was the best on the whole neighborhood, and it had cherrywood paneling and beautiful image. I never understood why all the other kids didn't have to stand up to change the channel... later I found out Sony made remote controller optionals until it was an industry standard...
maybe they need to bring back wood paneling from the 70's...
I like the Eee PC very much... not because it is cheap, but because of the form/function factor. I want a small PC with good performance and good battery life, and am willing to pay good money for it. The Eee PC is the only thing available... at any price, with that form factor.
yo sony...money isn't everthing~!
"thin margins"I disagree maybe tech companies shouldn't be so lusty for money.
Reading all your posts I kinda felt like a fanboi buying into marketing scheems, but then I saw my Tz and was reassured its an awesome machine well worth its price.
So I think people who like BMWs and have the means will still buy them if a company manages to come up with a car thats a third of its price.
People how buy this new cheap car probably couldn't afford a beemer in the first place so BMW wouldn't loose any money anyway.
yes sony we get it,
we know you're nazi WW2 veterans who are just trying to make the world a bad place
but of course its negative it will make everybody else drop their prices the second genetation eee is is gonna be a killer gotta get me one of those especially if it has 1.2ghz 16gb and 7" 1024x... resolution gona be awesome
of course this computer isn't meant for you, you probably aren't going to buy anything less that $1000 worth of computer, but everyone else only wants word, internet explorer, messengers, and itunes.
So it's you vs. 100,000 potential buyers.
i was being ironic of course its NOT negative what i ment was the eee is great but i want it a little more powerfull asus are going to change the game the specs i want are not going to make it expensive there is a guy who hackd it to 1.2ghz and the processor is only 40 bucks it will be better then the sony ux series basickly sony and others want more money for the same stuff so they will be forced to lower the pricec of their future produkts p.s.the eee cad do so much more then word, internet explorer, messengers, and itunes(hahahahahahahhahahahahhahah itunes hahaha you are byuing music retard alert)
I love it when free marketeers call foul on a free market.
When the 'mini' came in back in the 60's it expanded the car market hugely by being small, cheap and stylish. I don't think i've heard so much bull from an executive in quite some time and Im amazed Engadget thinks they may have a point
Wow, is it me or is Engadget becoming so pro-Sony???
Sony never ever made thing cheap.
so "cheap" kills "innovation"? how about innovating a way to make the plenty-powerful low end PC's cheaper with the same margins? Seems that's what Intel is doing with its MID platform, Sony just doesn't get it, as usual.
not everyone, and in fact very very few, can actually utilize a multi-core multi-Ghz machine. there's just no point to "faster faster" for your average home user.
The race to the bottom has already occured on the desktop. Why should laptops be immune?
"Sony exec sees Eee-like PCs as having potentially negative impact on industry"
I'm sure they do. How can they continue to sell $1,000 - 3,000 dollar laptops, when EEE PC come along a sells you one for $300. Which is all most non-techie people actually need or want. Meaning -- Grandmothers, small children, Aunts who are afraid to touch the keyboard, for fear of blowing up the computer (I'm NOT kidding -- won't own a DS, because the pen is "way" to completed).
of course they would
well the EeePC does suck. It can bearly do more than my N810 internet tablet, and is more than double in size. Not to mention the added advantages of the linux platform.
It does initiate a race to the bottom cos of its lack on innovation IN ITS SUB-CATEGORY of personal computing. Come on now, most mobile phones can do wat the eepc is capable of. i'd rather whip the 810 out of my packet than drag the eepc out of a bag for my minimal computing needs.
would like to give sony the benefit of the doubt, i dont c the eepc as nekind of threat to the laptop market, so i wud like to think that he meant the minimum portbale comuting segment.eepc sales are going to hit more innovative devices like the internet tablet which r also with in the same price range.
And in anycase i dont think Sony, of all companies has the right to bitch about nething.
More Sony Executive Baloney,
'it's hard to push things forward when your primary objective becomes making the very cheapest possible machine you can (and not very best).'
Sony exec sees Eee-like PCs as having potentially negative impact on industry (herein 'negative impact')
Didn't Sony 'develop' the lithium ion battery?
Wasn't Sony's lithium ion battery the 'largest recall in electronics history'.
'Innovation is hard enough to subsidize, but when your already thin margins flatten even further in trying to sell ultra-cheap machines, it's easy to see the economics working against tech companies. (Asus has less to worry about here because its primary business is making PCs for other companies.) Of course, the reality is that ultra-cheap machines probably won't soon envelop the lion's share of computer sales and threaten what most think of as "real" PCs, so we probably don't have to worry about the industry bottoming out because of the Eee.' ibid 'negative impact'
Didn't Sony make computer components for Dell?
'ultra-cheap machines probably won't soon envelop the lion's (li-ion, lithium ion) share of computer sales and threaten what most think of as "real" PCs
PCs (personal computer safety!)
As much as this response was likely to be due to sony missing the market, you gotta agree.
I mean i do custom builds for people and they always take price over performance. Like i try to explain to people that they would much better spending £600 on a PC that will be good for 5 years now than £350 and only be good for a year or so.
I have an EeePC running XP. Its a little slow at times but its ideal for the pupose i bought it for. Im 15 so i use for typing essays and such at school. Its brilliant for that. Then at lunch time, me and my mate just go on youtube for music on someones wifi who lives next to our school. Its ideal for that.
But i also have a high end desktop at home. 2x 17" monitors, 4GB RAM, OCed Q6600, RAID 0 boot, etc,,,
But people constantly ask me about it for their main PC and i just tell them it would be useless for that. I see the EeePC as a tool for school and using in bed, not a fully fledged PC.
I am going to sell my current 2G Surf (i bought the wrong one off the net :@) as soon as the 900 comes out and buy it. The 7" screen is just a tad annoying at times but generally is ok. Its more the CPU thats bad. The 2G surf is impossible to OC upto the advertised 900Mhz due to the motherboard.
Adam
This guy is just spinning this is Sony's favor. The truth is, technological innovation doesn't exist in a bubble. It's subject to economics, politics, consumer demand, and other social aspects, like everything else. If the Eee PC is selling like hotcakes, it means that's what people want, not higher tech. They want affordability, usability, and portability.
Consumer demand should drive product development, not technological advances. Of course Sony's main directive is to constantly innovate so they can stand out and have higher margins on their products. But to say that products like the Eee will "hurt the industry" is pure BS. The industry will thrive by having new high growth segments, and it's up to companies like Asus to tap that demand. And i'm sure Asus is making plenty of money off the Eee. So really, it's more of just something that will hurt SONY'S VIEW of the industry, not the actual industry.