Teaching an old Walkman new steps

After 20 years of dominating portable audio players, Sony lost out on digital players because of infighting. Now Sony has a plan for a comeback.
The New York Times

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Sony will still struggle

While Sony make great products, one thing they have struggled with is software. The difference in quality between Apple software and the guff that Sony bundle with any of their products is huge. <br /><br />Sony also seem to struggle to put together a decent web site for themselves, never mind a consumer service, so while the hardware will no doubt be 1st class, even better than apple, the web site and associated software will likely be a huge let down and dilute the whole user experience. Something that Apple has got just right !

[kieranmullen]

Proprietary Sony Technology Never Sells

Other proprietary Sony technologies which didn't sell. <br /><br />ilink (really just firewire but they wanted the credit)<br />MemoryStick<br />MiniDisk <br /><br />It worked and is working for Apple since they filled a need in the market and are doing very well at it. It would be good if Apple opens this technology up to the open market. Given their track record who knows...

[William002]

Sony will make money

I don't think that sony will become #1 in the legal music download market, but I do think that they will actually make money overall.<br /><br />As the first poster said, their hard-ware will be top notch (which is where Apple makes their money) and it's lowest player will cost only 60$ where alot of people can afford it.<br /><br />I execpt that within 3 months after Sony mass-market their player, Apple will start reporting lower shipments of IPODS, and in it's SEC filling will see because of competetion (Sony).<br /><br />William M Gary

[bigjim01]

Sony does not stand a chance

I really don't care for Apple's entry into that market, but I already have the mechanism at which I carry around digitial music, I have my Pocket PC. I think that venders like BuyMusic need to update the protection scheme to allow copying music to these advanced devices. They are much better than just the plain players as they have additional functionality. I guess that people in the industry really don't want to move to a digital world where things are protected and yet still available for people to do the type of things that they did in the analog world.