Sony Ericsson says first quarter sales down 50%, $500m loss expected
By Nilay Patel 
posted Mar 20th 2009 1:39PM
posted Mar 20th 2009 1:39PM
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Yuck
Well when you make crap what do you expect?
Everyone was waiting on the PSP phone...
Apple gave people what they are good at, iPod+ Phone... why cant you Sorny?
PSP Phone you dumb asses!!
so sony will make psp phone by them self without ericsson no?
mucho feo
Hey Sony/Ericsson... had you combined the PSP and the phone devices, maybe you'd have one killer must have product. Well, I think now it's just too late.
1) PSP uses UMD. Games labelled "PSP" on the box makes Joe think it works in a PSP. If any phone didn't have UMD, that would just be one hell of a reason for returning the game to poor retailers, right there. So this PSP Phone must have UMD.
2) having UMD means it's gonna be a certain width and thickness, and not go below a certain price... a certain price they would want to sell the thing at and profit on. In other words, it will have to cost far more than any current PSP.
3) adding tactile keys would be a nightmare on a PSP. Touchscreen keys would be the only way, unless it were some sort of slider. Same with any QWERTY keyypad they may or may not use. That said, the PSP Phone would have touch, but no games would use it ('cause existing and future games have to work in every PSP, especially those without touchscreen). So some confusion there in Joe Userland.
4) battery life would be horrendous. Alternatives? Make the unit even bigger than it is... speaking of which....
5) the unit would be very large unless they cut-down on the screen size. Who would actually buy it and use it in the real world?
6) another way they could make it smaller is give it crappier tactile controls that fit in less area. But IMO that dilutes the PlayStation brand and experience and puts it firmly into the crappy-games-on-phone phone experience.
In short, I think the PSP Phone would be a great way for them to leak even more money. It might sound great on paper for an enthusiast but it has many practical andf marketing considerations that are easily overlooked.
No word on what Ballmer has to say about this.
Also, good Economist story about fixing Sony.. just read it last night.
http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13234173
Good article, thanks. Looks like Sony has a lot more issues than just phones. I thought they were really kicking ass in the LCD TV market, offering great quality, great design, and pretty good prices but this is from the article: "Sony is the world’s second-largest LCD television-maker, but for five years has made a loss on every set it has sold." Ooops.
I wonder if iPhone success has anything to do with this,.??
But I thought Sony experia had all the features,proving once again feature rich does equal success.
As the economist article mentioned above points out, Sony has been squeezed by the market dividing into high end smartphones and cheap low end phones. Sony isn't particularly good at either.
In a way I am not surprised that Sony's idea of dividing the phones in camera, music, and others didn't work out. That was a really dumb concept.
As for the XPeria, there is only so much you can do with Windows Mobile. My first and last Sony phone was a P990i, at the time their top smartphone, and the only phone I have ever owned that was harder to use than my first Motorola back in 1996. The P990i wasn't just hard to use, it was downright impossible. And buggy as hell to boot.
What Sony and others need to do is fully embrace Android, kick out their development teams, and hire an entirely new dev team and pair it with their hardware engineers. That, or be condemned to Windows Mobile hell forever and ever. Because these companies can't expect to be able to create their own mobile OS.
When the quality of features is low, the phone is bloated, not feature rich. Fine line, I know, but it seems to me that any manufacturer who'd advertise his phone as feature-rich still lives in the XX century.
They deserved it for trying to compete with the iPhone, and staying with crap that is Windows Mobile for their flagship product.
They deserve losing money for trying to compete with the iPhone? What kind of bullshit is that? Soon all the hype on the iPhone will die down, wonder what all you iTards will do then?
You make me embarrassed to own an iPhone.
you make me embarassed to be a fellow human being
I have 3 2G iPhonez...
I make love to them every night.
Boo, I like my w580i...
I think SE phones are okay. The support is poor though.
Surprise!
Sony Mobile ?
everyone is losing money these days, just not as much as sony ericsson
It's not surprising. The last couple years they've been pushing out as many models as possible in a beta form. All the while, they've been charging premium prices. I've been looking to replace my SE K790 for a while now but few of their phones offer a complete package. They're either missing GPS or quad-band (I make trips overseas and lately their phones have all been tri-band) or autofocus, or an accelerometer, or whatever. It's always just one thing. Yes, I know those extras don't necessarily make a phone but the reason their sales have been dismal is because that's what people are looking for.
It's a shame too because for the most part, they make good hardware. My fiancee was yelling at me when I was using my N82 in the car because of how incredibly annoying the loudness of it was. Whereas my K790 was whisper quiet when pressing keys or just holding it (The N82 is awesome but it creaks and moans like an old man getting up for pea soup).
I hope the Idou is a success but am fully expecting it to be gimped with regional tri-band or something. Their regular UI is awesomely quick but maybe they should move it all to S60.
Idou won't be released in 2009 (if ever). Thats first. Second - they're dropping UIQ for Symbian (wow... they still have a piece of intelligence).
And third: Idou will (if ever) most likely be a "super-mega-fricking-uber-premium phone", so don't expect it to have a reasonable price or firmware. But I expect camera to be superb and worth that 10x price of the digital camera without a cell phone.
/IMO
Shinigami, UIQ IS Symbian...or WAS Symbian, given the fact that UIQ Tech. doesn't exist today.
If by "Intelligence" you are reffering to thrashing more advanced platform (UIQ) and replacing it with S60 (or SF, orwhatever), solely because of bad management and lack of purpose on SE's behalf, then I just don't get your logic.
Nevertheless, this is not unexpected; it was loong time coming and it serves them right.
They keep announcing phones and then not releasing them! I'm waiting and waiting for a SE phone that I want to buy and I can't yet. No wonder they have no money! :P
For the curious: I previously wanted the Z780 which ended up being released in South America only. I could import it but I've since lost interest and focused my attention on the W508 / W518a. Waiting waiting...
Good riddance. After owning a T637 for a year, I couldn't get rid of it fast enough. The joystick was a nightmare to use. The "internet" button is WAY too easy to be pressed accidentally. I've gotten serious bills for "going online" when the phone has been in a bag or in my pocket. Mind you these were the days when data rate was astronomical. AT&T claimed there's no way to disable that button so I ended up putting some electrical tape over it. Not to mention the stupid camera button that takes a dozen pictures of my pocket/bag each day. The T68i I had before this was far better, even though it didn't have a camera.
LOL on the internet button story. Would make a great "how to not design a user interface" story.
Co-incidentally, I was looking at some slim, sexy Samsung phones a while back and the only reason I got a N73 instead was the internet button on the front. Because on these phones, internet was more or less a marketing gimmick.
Yo soy Joe!
They should update their UIQ phones to S60. I'm sure it's not a performance issue.
Please? :(
Their UIQ3 phones were seriously underpowered. First batch (M600,W950 and P990) had only 64 MB RAM, which led to all the other problems and complaints (+ SE's arrogant attitude with supporting these devices). Later devices (P1,W960,G900) were given 128 MB RAM, but processor was the same as on those first devices released few years earlier!
That is just not the way to run a business...
Se=Moto
You'll find many much slower Nokia phones running S60.
And SE isn't anywhere as bad as Moto (yuck).
That sign makes no sense.
Me gusta el pollo
Does this mean that there will be price drops with their phones?
I hope it's not just me but i really like some of their phones. And with a lower price, I might just choose SE with my next phone.
SEs problem:
-Their mid-range line lacks anything remotely compelling
-Their high-end phones are always outrageously priced for what you get (W950/P910/P1i/X1a)
-They split their walkman/cybershot lines several years ago to further "give the consumer a choice"...only now are they starting to include AF cameras on walkman branded phones; they had a good thing going on with the W810, and they totally ruined it.
-They refused to put 3.5mm jacks or dedicated audio chips in their devices (similar solutions from Nokia have both)
-Build quality on their devices has gone down the toilet. I find that CS for repair/warranty is excellent, but if you have to use them often, something is not right.
Actually Sony Ericsson phones do have 3.5mm jacks already.
I have the X1 and there are a lot of users reporting quality issues like the cases cracking up for no reason. I don't have this problem so I can't really comment how their warranty is.
maybe SE should come out with some cool phones (X1ish), but not for $600
I still love my w810i. It's a great phone. But, as someone mentioned, after that the story goes south. camera or walkman? we make it or HTC does? you can buy it here, or maybe not? soon come jamaica? cheap or absurd? Sony has been dropping the ball and choking like crazy in everything they touch for years now, blowing a huge lead in everything. It's a shame.