We've always had a soft spot for Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer, and it sounds like the old man's doing more than
cajoling Tom Hanks into telling jokes following his
consolidation of power: in a lengthy and illuminating interview with Nikkei Electronics Asia, Sir Howard pledged that Sony would use more open standards in the future, saying "If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple" in the music market. That's a pretty bold statement to be making in hindsight -- especially since we're pretty sure the Connect Player and SonicStage would have still driven people screaming into the arms of iTunes -- but it's pretty heartwarming to hear from the head of a company just as famous for an endless array of funky proprietary standards as it is the Walkman. You want to make us feel even warmer and fuzzier, Howie? "We can no longer say that we're right and our customers are wrong. We can't build only what we want to build." Wow -- sounds like the start of a whole new Sony. We'll see if Sir Howard can actually pull off what sounds like a major change in his company's culture, but for right now we'd recommend hitting the read link and taking in the whole interview, cause it's a good one.
posted May 11th 2009 1:52PM
The problem is Sony is into waaaaay too many things as far as consumer electronics go. They have no focus. They try to do everything instead of trying to do a few things right. They should narrow their scope and focus on those things.
how about building things that you want to build, and people want to buy? i think that's how apple did it...
D U H.
What kind of mealy-mouthed hypothetical is that? Sony NEVER goes for open technology. They keep clinging to closed standards in the hopes of earning huge profits from an industry monopoly of their own design. It's been their modus operandi for as long as I can remember and that's not likely to change in the future, even with Stringer calling the shots.
Sony simple fail to learn from history:
success: CD - sony cooperated with others to make a relatively open standard
fail: betamax - sony restricted licences to favoured companies, opened it too late
Stringer is absolutely right, Sony had its chance when it introduced the MD player.
I had a high end MD player with those 1GB discs and its sound and hardware features were superior to other all other players before the iPod was invented.
But besides the crappy PC software, the biggest obstacle was the DRM which was probably the most aggressive and rude DRM ever invented in the portable player market.
The DRM finally lead to Sony's demise in this market.
I had one of their memory stick players with ATRAC. Cost $400.00 and had to use a "white stick" Sony memory card. I think I could fit 12-16 songs on it. Was kind of purple/blue. Wore it on a lanyard. People were amazed. The management software was awful, but I think I defended it at the time because it was so cool. Frankly I didn't understand then the evils of DRM.
Another BIG Mistakes within Sony is creating conflict among their different product department.
MYLO for example, a stupid move, why didn't they combined with Sony Ericsson? By adding Cellular Phone support?
It could make a huge impact.
Once you buy more and more products from Sony, you'll understand what I'm saying...
You'll notice a lot of redundant resources invested within Sony...
Well sony here is a good start, its called an Industry standard. What you do is stop making your own formats . We have SD and don't need memory stick.
It just seems like it would cost more to create your own memory format and devices to read it
Now if only that means Sony would release a toolkit allowing people to master SACDs at home...
All of you are talk about the memory stick in such a negative manner - but they were of such high quality and another reason follows. Take a look at how fast the capacities of SD cards increased and the sizes of the cards dicreased. This speed was due to competition from Sony. If it wasn't for the memory stick, SD cards wouldn't have been so cheap, capacious and small as they are today. The xD card was and is completely irrelevant.
If sony pulls this off then I might actually like them. (They really do need to get rid of the proprietary crap. There have been a couple of times where I would have bought a Sony product if it only used SD/SDHC/SDXC cards)
He's right, but it's too late now...
It's nice to see that Sony realizes the HUGE COLOSSAL MISTAKE they made years ago when they dominated the music market back in the 80s, and attempted to their own direction in the 90s instead of supporting what everyone else was doing. Part of Sony's bad decision was the result of them also owning a record company (Columbia). They were also under direction to always release new products, especially if they relied on Sony's technologies.
In a sense they've repeated the same bad decision making when it came to the PS3. They pretty much dominated the gaming market, and instead of building a better and affordable successor to the wildly popular PS2, they decided to go their own direction, not listen to customers, and put themselves into a position where they're fighting for marketshare. Now one might argue that Sony does support open standards on the PS3, and to a degree that is true, but the main reason why Sony is not #1 in gaming today, is because once again, they pushed their own technologies over what was widely available in the marketplace. There is no doubt in my mind that had the PS3 come a DVD drive instead of Blu-Ray, they would have cheaper out of the gate and way more successful on momentum from PS2 upgrades alone.
"We can no longer say that we're right and our customers are wrong. We can't build only what we want to build."
Right. That means rethinking every crappy, uninspired user interface Sony's ever designed. Apple beat Sony to the party with the iPod, that's true, but continued drubbing them with its ease of use and trendy design updates. Accessibility = market share. Plain and simple.
Sony has the resources to bring us the iPhone, and yet they bring us Walkmen that couldn't hold a candle to the Zune. Instead of something like Microsoft's XBE we get the XMB and Playstation Home. Instead of just sucking it up and utilizing popular, standardized and widely accepted flash memory devices in their products, they force expensive, proprietary, and glacially slow memory sticks down our throats. UMD anyone?
With the exception of Blu-ray and OLED (I suppose), Sony has been behind the curve on every product they've released in recent memory. Even Samsung is more innovative.
And Stringer? Anyone familiar with his comments regarding the gaming market knows this guy has zero credibility.
For the non-believers in this statement...think back to mini-disc. Back when MP3 was new and players were scarce (and before) they had a player much smaller than a CD with a much more durable disc with great battery life. 1-2 hours per MD also gave an impressive compression ratio (significantly above MP3 iirc at a minor cost in fidelity).
In fact, this was right when the Zip Disc took the world by storm. Sony HAD an answering shot but they were slow off the mark, too expensive, too complicated. Capacity was similar but the MD was smaller, could be read off a PORTABLE device, etc.
All Sony had to do was open the standard. All they had to do was offer the disc and drive unencrypted for a reasonable fee. The portable players had the horsepower to decode, the disc had the capacity to store it all. Offer up a PC drive makes loading music simple...and the versatility - your MP3s and your data can co-mingle on the same media and player? Genius!
But...no. MD was hamstrung from the beginning. By the time Sony relaxed a bit it was too late. The lack of advertizing push failed as well. Just another example of their failure.
So yes, I do believe they could have owned the portable music market. They could have also enjoyed Iomega's popularity too. Hind-sight I suppose...but back in 'the day' I sure thought MD was a great idea poorly implemented.
well, you forgot to mention that before they came up with atrac3 they tried to sell the minidisc as an mp3 player, you only had to record every single song on the disc. I remember thinking about buying a thing and this guy selling them told all the "features" and how to make it work, so I said, no thanks, I'll carry my pc for my mp3, a few months later the Ipod appeared.
Others have already mentioned this but I was really pissed when I bought family member mp3 cd players years ago and they actually were not. Sony force users to convert files to their format. So you couldn't just exchange CDs between you in-dash MP3 player and the Sony's fake portable MP3 CD player, which was the whole point for some buyers.
Yes, Sony, yes! I would be your customer again if you promised to stop being such cocks!
The last Sony product I bought was a portable MiniDisc player/recorder.
I concur.
STEVE JOBS ALSO SAYS WITH HINDSIGHT: IF WE'D GONE WITH OPEN TECHNOLOGY, MICROSOFT WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN EXISTED!!!
First, Microsoft's existence was solidified when IBM contracted them to build DOS as the primary operating system for the first PC's.
Microsoft stole the windowed operating system concept from Apple when Jobs revealed the pre-Macintosh Lisa prototype to him shortly afterward. The first Macintosh was released in 1984, after DOS and IBM and a slew of PC-compatibles had already built some considerable market share.
Windows around that time, ran on top of the DOS operating system that all those PCs out there were already using. So there wasn't a compelling reason for many PC users to switch, even if Jobs had ported the Macintosh OS to the open-platform PC. And I'm not certain it would have even run on the PC-compatible hardware of that period.
The PC + Windows solution (or Wintel) continued to gain market share and was heavily adopted by businesses that are slow and resistant to change. DOS + Windows 3.x was so ubiquitous, that by the time Windows 95 came around, Apple never had a chance.
Your explanation is inaccurate.
If MS didn't exist, Apple wouldn't have existed.
Hell if MS didn't exist, computers would be strictly for databases and spreadsheets.
Paradox.
Hope other CEO's join in on the open-source opera :)
Personally I hope this doesn't signal a change. I hope they try stay the course, and bank everything on pushing proprietary standards and technology. And then get utterly crushed in the future. Don't get me wrong. I think they have led the world with in engineering products, but in trying to dictate the usage terms they have inflicted so much frustration on end users, and hindered technological progress, I would personally prefer they are called to account.
Bitter? Very.
The real shame is that down the track they can elect to join open initiatives such as e.g. the OHA instead of being blocked, crushed and sold into slavery like they so richly deserve.
DEATH TO SONY!!! and APPLE!!!
Sony and Apple are - in my, sincere, opinion - two great examples of companies who shouldn't even exist. (And there are others, but these are the ones in question)
Apple and Sony do have great products, which have loads and loads of quality, and are two companies which are constantly innovating and pushing the market forward.
BUT, IF (and i emphathise the IF) i buy a portable music player and i want to put songs in it to listen to them (cause that's what i bought it to) i have to buy them to the company who sold the device (even if i already own the song?).
If i want to add more storage capacity to Sony camera, cell phone or music player, i have to buy Sony's storage devices, which cost a load more of cash.
And about the same thing happens with Apple.
And, in my sincere opinion (again), people who buy products of such brands are just dumb for these reasons:
- They can live without those products
- They have alternatives that are more 'open' and give more power to the consumer
- By buying those products, they are encouraging such companies to make their future products even less 'open'
And that's basically why i don't buy products from such companies...
So what you're saying is that you were not aware that the iPod works with many different audio formats and you can put music on it from any source that you want. You are under NO obligation to buy music from Apple. Are we all clear on that point now?
In 2001, Apple came out with a series of ads called "Rip, Mix, Burn". That's right, Apple was not only enabling but fully endorsing the ability to rip CDs to MP3. Why would you think that philosophy has changed at all? Apple still fully endorses your ability to rip CDs and put whatever music you want on iPods from whatever source you want.
I realise that, thus the question mark in: "...(even if i already own the song?)..."
BUT, Apple is still tries to 'force' people to their technologies, with their OSes, and controlling the apps you can install in the iPhone you payed a bunch of money for. Hell, the largest customization you can do to your MacOS is change the wallpaper (so i've been told)... It's just not as aggressive as Sony, but still...
I may speak only for myself, but if pay for smething, i better have full control over it, and not have to pay extra fees, or else it's a crappy product!...
MacOS is probably more customizable than Windoze if you know how, and if not, there are plenty of apps out there to help you do it. Whoever 'told' you that garbage was mistaken.
As for the iPhone, of course it's locked down. Can you tweak the OS in a Motorola, LG, Samsung, or Nokia? No. You get a handful of themes, ringtones, and some crappy java games. That's hardly open-platform customization.
Android may give you more freedom to corrupt your cell phone with garbage, but they're playing catch up. Apple deserves some credit for getting the ball rolling in the first place.
nomadewolf, you just made a bunch of complete non-points. When it comes to Apple and their products, your head is all the way up your ass. If you already own the song then you just copy it to the iPod. Are you having trouble understanding that the iPod works with all kinds of different formats?
Apple isn't forcing anybody to do jack squat. If you don't want to buy music from the iTunes store then buy it from Amazon! iTunes and iPods work perfectly with the lower quality MP3s from Amazon, or from any other source you'd care to copy them from. Seriously, what are you not getting about this?
And yes, you're completely wrong about how much you can customize OS X. You would have to be some kind of moron to actually believe that. I really don't have very much tolerance for jackasses like you who can't be bothered to do even the slightest bit of research on something before badmouthing it and actually believing your own verbal diarrhea. Get a god damn clue please, thanks.
Many thanks for the enlightening me, zak and overwhelmed...
I'm perfectly aware that that Nokia, Motorola, etc, etc, have maybe even more strict conditions... I've always bought Nokia cell phones, because really like the brand... Until i bought my N95... It will be the last Nokia i will ever buy, and the last SymbianOS powered cell phone i will ever buy, get the point?
But even allowing their customers decide where to buy music, isn't enough (for me). I have the right to know what software is running in my devices. And i have the right to change it as i please without voiding warranty, because it's just software... And i payed for both device and software.
Or how do you feel about having to sign a contract where you pay a zillion dollars (clearly exaggerating, but i guess you get the point...) a month so you can have your iPhone, which in after all, Cell Phone? Or you pay an exorbitant fee (€700 where i'm from) for it if you don't want the contract?
How about the fact that you can't remove the battery from your iPhone? Do need to tell you all the implications of that?
As i said Apple is not the most restrictive company, not compared to Sony, or Microsoft (maybe in other aspects), or Nokia, etc, etc.
So my point is: many companies in many different aspects try to restrict your options and rights. Some companies more than others, but it's mostly the major ones. And this is getting more and more usual, and the restrictions are increasing.
Do you disagree?
Also, i've bought and listened the so called 'lower quality' music, and i'm still alive.
And last but not the least, i don't feel the need to insult people who i don't know and make a judgement of their personality based on a couple of forum posts...
My point is that you're offered much more flexibility to add/change install software on the iPhone than you are on nearly every other phone. Have you ever used one? There are more applications available in the app store for that phone than you could ever possibly need, many of them for free, and most for less than 5 bucks. You don't get that level of customization on any other phone, period.
As an old UNIX/Linux admin, I cringe every time somebody says that open-platform/open-source is the best thing for everybody. Really? Try supporting it for a while. I used to be on the penguin bandwagon too. I even bought Red Hat stock post-IPO. Well, It's well over a decade later, Linux still hasn't taken over the world, and my Red Hat stock is still worth less than what I bought it for. Why? Because the open-source community can't agree on anything.
Windows is a closed architecture, OS X is closed architecture, and most of the successful UNIX builds in use in business are more or less closed as well. There's a reason for that. At some point, the product needs to be supported by somebody. Some central figure needs to know, for the good of his technical support staff and his company's bottom line, that his product hasn't been compromised. He needs to know that the product he designed and guaranteed to work properly yesterday is the same one he'll be working on tomorrow. He restricts access to the nuts and bolts of the systems he sells because he can't trust his livelihood to a mob of individuals on the internet who never agree on anything, and whose intentions aren't clear.
This is why OSX, which is Apple controlled, but a derivative of a derivative of open-source UNIX, is stable and selling. And why Windows hasn't completely given itself over to hackers and viruses. More proof? OpenGL is and open source 3D API, nobody uses it for gaming. DirectX is a Microsoft controlled 3D API, and everybody does.
So it is with the iPhone. Yes, Apple is trying to make a buck. But they also don't want to deal with all the stupid things a user wants to do with their phone. You want to jailbreak it, fine. Just don't come crying to us when you somehow delete the /usr directory and brick the phone.
Really, I'd void your warranty too. And if you did that on a company cell phone that I had to support at work, I'd replace it with a disposable Nokia.
As for the battery, I think you're grasping at straws to make your point. Nobody really bases a buying decision on the presence or lack of a removable battery.
I haven't bought a Sony product in 7 years, but I will buy the first Sony camera with a SD card.
I'm with there brutha.
I'm with YOU there, my brotha! (Jeez, I'm typing dyslexic now...)
you better sit down, they just announced that the new 16GB Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo "HX" will be arriving in stores.
add a lossless format support (flac) pls.
To anyone who believes Apple had better designers, I would have to say that you are dead wrong. Apple was just better at marketing plain and simple. The iphone and iphone 3G are perfect examples. They couldn't record video, send SMS messages or even cut and paste but they still sold in the millions. Sony shot themselves in the foot because they had to many proprietary restrictions (memory cards, proprietary music encoding) and their build quality took a nose dive (anyone remember the Sony battery fiasco). Apple is heading the same way (BSOD and video card issues with new Macs, monitor quality problems). As I like to consider myself somewhat of a power user, I don't like my choices of hardware or software to be restricted. I want to buy decent products. I don't mind paying a bit more if I get what I pay for in warranty, reliability and performance. Right now, Apple and Sony do not provide this. Proof in point. I have an 550Mhz AMD Athlon overclocked to 850 MHz with an AOPEN motherboard that has run for almost 9 years without a hiccup. My wife's niece has a g5 mac that started acting up after a couple of years. Needless to say, I don't want to mention how much they wanted to repair the Mac.
Are you kidding? The iPhone was inferior because it couldn't record video? Who cares when over 1 billion apps have been downloaded for the thing. How many of those do you think will run on your typical cell phone? It's the OS you pay for, not the phone or video. Some people really don't get it.
As for your comment about BSOD's on Macs....that's a good one. Macs on OSX don't BSOD (obviously). Anything/everything on Windows does. That's a Microsoft problem. Try a real operating system and recompute.
actually no. Apple doesn't add all that stuff, because it has no competition, so if they want they could release the video iphone in 2011 if they wanted, they already got the people pretty happy with less functionality just for the presentation. If Apple were to innovate they would make the iphone more like japanese cellphones, not what it is today.
Underwhelmed, you live with your head in the sand. Here are some web articles about the blue screen (maybe not Microsoft BSOD) but apple's version of it.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1195031&tstart=0
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/10/27/for-some-installation-problems-spoil-leopards-release/
Secondly, it a product better designed if your cell phone only lasts for a half a day. Is it better designed, if your cell phone keeps dropping your connection. Is it better designed, if you have to take it to a service center to get the battery replaced. In regards to the apps for the iphone, about 1% of those apps are actually useful. I'll stay with my trusty Nokia and limited apps. At least I can take a relatively decent photo, video record, be able to make and receive phone calls and have another 2 days standby left over. I pay for features and robustness not eye-candy and gimmicks. If it's the OS that is so important, then the iphone sucks. Any cheap phone OS has support for SMS and video recording. You really mean their user interface is the best which I am willing to admit. But a good user interface does not make a phone good when it lacks what I consider standard features on a phone that's so expensive. It's like buying a new dual or quad core computer that can't play DVD video. Get in the game.
I will admit one thing. I do agree that the iphone web browser is much easier to use but it is useless if it doesn't support the flash plugin. Who would use any kind of computer with a web browser that doesn't support flash? There is a reason why the flash player is one of the most downloaded apps for internet browsers. Get in the game.
I like to see how cool you look with the farting phone app at a ministerial luncheon. Then again, what use is a farting app if you can't record the video to catch people's expressions?
iphone = idiot phone
They sell phones because of the brand recognition they get from ipods. Not because it is vastly superior to a lot of phones. Here in Asia nobody buys an iphone because they aren't good enough feature wise. We all just drool over the phones the Japanese use.
If it took this long for Stringer to realize that, then it's too late for Sony. But don't worry Sir Howard, keep pumping out those marketing terms to create the "illusion" of sound quality, and your fanboys will be more than happy to give you their money for your overpriced products to keep you afloat.
....
.
...
FINALLY.!
I don't trust you sony, and its a long hard road outta hell. MAYBE just MAYBE... sony got the message. But i doubt it.
sony sony sony...the company many of us would like to love....sigh
the myriad of problems sony has is just legendary.
i remember ready an interview i believe in wired many years ago about how they didnt need to be open with anybody, they have the greatest builders in the world, and they were contemplating the hat trick...creating thier own operating system. yep, thats right, sony actually believed they could pull it off, and of course, we would all love it.
the problem?
sony hasnt actually bothered invested in software talent - at all. sony's software - whether standalone or connecting to its products- is the standard bearer for being extremely poor. sony is and always has been a hardware company, regardless of the record labels.
The problem seems pretty simple- investment. investment--> fruition takes time. Sony's running out of time. Coulda shoulda woulda, what are you going to do now?
oh wait, the other problem?
japanese engineer built company mindset. the japanese already move at a snails pace in several key parts of the electronics sector, and has single handedly given rise to the behemoth that is now samsung. Sony HATED samsung- they invaded so many of sony product lines while the old farts at the top just watched, snickering at the corner of thier eyes. Then they had to make deals with them because sony finally realized they are not the hardware gods they thought they were.
everyone wondered if the american had the ability to change the old fart engineer company's ways, and i think we have our answer. good luck to them. the morons.
A lot of you guys are missing the point...innovation means squat if nobody buys into it. That's where Jobs has succeeded and Sony has failed...being able to convince people that they are worth the premium. Jury's still out as to what Apple is without Jobs...IMHO not much... yet. They seem like a methodology without a vision/cause. Maybe they can redefine themselves without Jobs...if not they'll be where Sony is now in a couple of years.
Yeah, Apple succeeded because they had very, very good marketing.
The tipping point for Apple was when they decided to focus on consumer products instead of computers.
Sony is really trying to open it's products up and make them more compatible.
With their video gear they are actively advertising the compatibility with other formats and the like.
Bring it on.
That is pretty a amazing admission by a CEO, but it's only half the story. Now all Howie has to figure out is that if Sony stuck to making hardware that people wanted, rather than hardware designed to PREVENT people from enjoying media (i.e DRM up the wazoo), they would have beaten EVERYBODY. But I won't hold my breath for that realization since Mr. Stringer comes from the movie side of things. Remember the days when Sony FOUGHT the studios to get a product to market (Betamax and Walkman)?
I as developer think all format must bee open and free !!!
This is what happens when you have a huge conglomerate. It's like looking after a bunch of children and letting the meanest one always have their way.
So you have Sony Pictures/Music, which brings in millions of dollars in profit, dictating what should or shouldn't be allowed by Sony Consumer Electronics, which does BILLIONS in profit. I don't know how this CEO runs the company without getting fired. But I think I would ask to see the balance sheet of each division before A gets to tell B how to run his business.
This reminds me of the banking situation at the moment. Retail banking has always been profitable and stable, but you have the derivatives department, which is orders of magnitude smaller, and they get to take all the profits and piss it away on junk.