Sony Projects Record Losses of $6.4 Billion 290
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Unknown Lamer
from the crash-and-burn dept.
from the crash-and-burn dept.
redletterdave writes "Not 24 hours after Sony announced it would slash about 10,000 jobs by the end of the year, the Japanese electronics maker announced on Tuesday that it has again doubled its annual net loss to a record $6.4 billion. The new annual estimate is Sony's fourth revision of its original forecast. The company had already more than doubled its loss forecast for fiscal 2011 on April 5 to $2.9 billion, blaming floods in Thailand, poor foreign exchange rates, and a failed partnership with Samsung... Kazuo Hirai, the company's new president and CEO hired 10 days ago, will take 'painful steps' to revive Sony, and will unveil a 'revival strategy' at a Thursday press briefing."
Re:It's called 'VAIO' (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't wish a VAIO upon my worst enemy.
I spent more time de-crapifying VAIOs than actually prepping them for the end-user.
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
Their electronics side is doing quite well, its the other divisions you don't hear about that are really doing badly.
The Chemical Processing Division is being sold off? and will account for about 3000 of those jobs.
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
Instead, they got Absolutely Fucking Hammered in their "Once reputable; but basically who gives a fuck anymore and Panasonic is cheaper and as good and whoever makes 'Vizio" is cheaper still and I don't notice the difference" segments.
Is it arguable that arrogance is biting them in the ass? Sure. Along with generic failure-to-focus and commodification of what used to be quality-driven markets(with music and 'home theatre' gear, people have either gone hard upmarket to the boutique guys, or are basically buying on price. Sony is neither. Game over.
However, all their truly malicious rather than merely arrogant and feckless, divisions remain viable.
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
I stopped buying Sony products when I called for an RMA on a Sony tape drive and was told that they don't support computer products unless they're specifically connected to computers running desktop versions of Windows. In response, I asked if that included displays. The phone monkey hung up on me.
Funny in retrospect but the level of unfriendliness suggested by that interaction is such that I've been looking forward to Sony's demise for a long, long time.
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
I was never in an active "boycott Sony" mode. Although I am not sure that it mattered. That's the problem really. Sony is suffering from a great deal of indifference in general I think rather than just the rage of a few well informed nerds.
What's Sony got to offer us that would make us want to break a boycott even if we decided we were boycotting them? I think a lack of answer to that question is their real problem.
Sony? Who cares?
Re:It's kind of ironic... (Score:2, Informative)
"I'm just surprised we seem to have stopped at 1080p as a standard just when LCD manufacturing reliability got to the point where we could produce much higher resolution monitors quite easily. "
Whats the point? Its already impossible to resolve individual pixels on a 1080 unless your nose is right up against it or the display is something like 40+inchs in size.
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
They used to be a great tech company. They built things that enthusiasts loved. I still remember fondly my WM-10. [walkmancentral.com] It was a sad day when I dropped it and broke the headphone jack.
There are two things that I believe led them to the brink of the disaster they currently find themselves in:
1) Proprietary technology: Sony's history with proprietary technology goes back decades. A partial list:
- Betamax (VHS won even though technologically inferior)
- MD (CDs were more versatile and sounded better)
- Memory Sticks (an unneeded but pricy competitor to SD, CF, etc.)
- Bluray (I still wish HD-DVD had won that war).
IBM learned their lesson about proprietary commodity hardware when their PS/2 [wikipedia.org] attempt tanked.
2) Purchase of Columbia Pictures (1989): With this purchase, their media arm became the tail that wagged the dog, and it continued with their purchase of BMG. They forgot about enabling their customers with technology, and used their technology to inhibit their customers instead, all in the name of protecting their media. This led them to blunders such as their use of XCP and MediaMax rootkits [wikipedia.org] They still haven't learned their lesson, as it continues with BD+ [wikipedia.org]
Several cable companies are falling into this same trap. When a single entity owns both the media and the distribution channel, consumer trust evaporates as the entity inevitably tries to tie the two into a monopoly.
When will it end? And can we as consumers ever trust them again?
I seriously doubt it. I haven't bought any Sony gear for nearly a decade, and I don't think I'm the only one.
RIP, Sony - 1946 - 201x
Re:Some hints: (Score:5, Informative)
On the risk that I may sound like an Apple apologist (I'm far from one!):
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
What's the downside again?
D fucking R fucking M....
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products. Sony's eBook reader, for instance, is a model product. It uses the ePub format (the real, standardized one, not the hacked version that B&N sells). it uses a standard USB cable to transfer data, and charge. It doesn't have any backdoor via wireless or anything else that will let them pull a 1984 on books you've already purchased.
And it has the crappiest ebook management software you are ever likely to encounter, that Sony tries to force you to use by making it run whenever the reader is connected and so locking out alternative ebook management software such as Calibre. Yes, there are workarounds, but why does it need workarounds. Sorry, but I made the mistake of buying a Sony eReader and regret the waste of money. It is nowhere near being a "model product".
Re:Sony's war on their customers (Score:5, Informative)
I stopped buying Sony CDs with the rootkit thing. I watched from afar at the PS3 thing - swearing to never buy a Sony games console.
I foolishly bought a Sony Bluray player (with xvid/mkv codecs) and was happy. They released firmware to improve it, regularly, then they pulled a PS3-style stunt and silently and without permission installed their shitty Cinavia DRM. Can't roll it back. I caught it one update too late unfortunately. I would never have bought an media player with that functionality built in to it, and yet, somehow, now I paid good money for one and own one!
The lesson: if it has updatable firmware that you either have no control over or must install to continue functionality, NEVER EVER EVER buy Sony, because they will fuck you over for their own ends.
I still own a Sony clock radio from the early 90's and it works perfectly. No updates possible, or course. Would buy one again. Maybe that's what Sony will become - a tiny company who isn't trusted to sell anything more complicated than a non-network connected clock radio.
Oh well!