Could an open Sony beat Apple?
In an interview with Nikkei Electronics Asia, Sony CEO Howard Stringer pledged that the company 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.
Sure, and if Sony had created a music store, a desktop application, and a great device, it could have won that way too. But it didn't. Certainly, open technology would have helped to create some kind of ecosystem, but it wouldn't have solved the strategic problem of creating a holistic consumer experience. Nor would it have made a difference in the fact that Sony owns a huge library of music that Apple monetized far more efficiently while Sony fought for CDs to outlive MP3s.
Sony had many, many chances to use open standards and technologies for a wide variety of products and opted against in most cases. The company also gave up its massive lead in music players as Apple leaped ahead by creating a seamless user experience while Sony focused on that blue alien.
Sony is however leaning toward openness in the PlayStation Network (PSN) where the digital rights management is based on Marlin, an open scheme (yes, open DRM is an oxymoron) developed by consumer electronics companies and other companies that will allow other systems to participate in the PSN.
"What does all this mean?" he added. "Very simply, it means that Sony has begun the transition from a closed system to an open one.
Hindsight is 20/20 and I am sure Stringer believes his statement to be true. But open is a relative term. Just because other companies will be able to interact with the PSN it doesn't mean that the rest of the world's developers will be able to participate in developing games or applications or creating a cottage industry as Apple has done for the iPhone.
Being open doesn't guarantee that a community or ecosystem will sprout up around a product. A company with Sony's coffers could do a lot more to make its devices and content accessible to a broad range of developers who would seed the market and make it more money.
Via Engadget
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Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom. 
Sony was in the position of trying to sell more hardware while trying to preserve their music from piracy.
What they should have done was sell the music part of their business (which would have been worth more then) and then they could have gone full tilt toward making MP3 players and the like. Instead of synergy their properties stopped each other from innovating and they tried to keep people stuck on the old paradigm of CDs.
This is a lesson to anyone wanting to fight against technology and what people want to do. If your buisness plan is to compete against the Internet, technology, and the way people consume digital content, then you will lose.
Their legacy is a case book on how not to run a business. But maybe they can bounce back? There is always that chance, after all Apple nearly went bust once.
Here in Italy we had many internet TV set-top boxes, but all had a closed-garden business model. I think AliceTV and TiscaliTV are good examples of how a closed business model is not what people want. Now, some companies started rethinking their business model (and some are closing down). Maybe we will see a new version, the "open garden" version of their set-top boxes? Here in italy Tvblob is leading the way to an over the top tv, many will surely follow, in my opinion if a big player like Sony or Samsung will adopt this openness, they will surely win.
And aren't these the bozos that tried to install a rootkit if you put one of their CDs in your PC? Clueless!
With the iPod touch and iPhone and App store, Apple has a whole mobile platform ready to explode in the next 5 to 10 years and they are still feeding off the iTunes music, movies and TV shows that got the ball rolling with the iPod, only now the app store has added a second exponential growth engine.
Apple has done a great job of marketing itself as an open source company, and getting its fan club to back them with it. In the end Apple beats Sony because the ppl that buy apple love the company for no other reason then its apple. They are fully devoted to it, and would never even blink to think about another possibility it will always be apple first. Sony on the other had does not have the same reputation and will lose the battle just off followership. It must make a product that wins and reinovates in order for it to succeed, just like most of the other large business out there now aday.
I have lost a lot of faith in Sony products over the last few years. My mother bought a Sony radio, CD, alarm clock, nice looking device. However, it is incredibly complicated to set and program the alarms. It is like the project manager told the engineers to give it the most frustrating and difficult to use interface as possible. Not to mention that the same engineers probably wrote the manual which has grayish 8 point type on cheap off-white paper.
Sony takes really cheap hardware, and poor-to-mediocre software, and does its best to dress it up. I'm thinking that Stringer has formed that same opinion of Apple and their products. In fact, Apple makes very shrewd technical and financial choices in their designs, are sticklers for form AND function, and, more importantly, own their platform soup to nuts. Apple's secret is that they're a software shop first, hardware shop second, and not at all a media company. Sony couldn't have been Apple because they have never wanted to be Apple. For Sony it's: make device, create content, buy software, modify software to lock-down hardware and content.
Warning: bad language
What Stringer is probably referring to is the decision (made by the former CEO who, along with his pet robot, got ousted in favor of Stringer) to stick with their proprietary ATRAC codec.
He is probably lamenting that the bozos before him didn't go with mp3 - yeah there have been patent and licensing issues with mp3, but it was and still is wide spread. Sony had the lead on the device side but dropped the ball on the software side by being late and proprietary.
Having been in and out of Japan and having used MD players, I tend to agree with Stringer.
The winners have foresight, the losers don't :)
But seriously, I was using itunes on a sawtooth G4 when my sony MD player quit on me. Having realized how much better it was to manage the music with the computer, I looked into the NetMD players available at the time - this was pre-ipod days and much of my music was on MD. The whole reason I didn't buy it was ATRAC. Seemed like a no-brainer, but guess it wasn't so obvious to Sony.
Sony's worldwide success with the walkman was due to watching what the Japanese market wanted and sending that abroad.
Sony's downfall came because they continued to watch the Japanese market while the rest of the world moved to home computer based solutions and then the ipod.
sucks huh...
It saw ATRAC as its format thus you could only play it if you had sony software. No one else supported it and while iTunes was a little bit like this Apple gave iTunes away to anyone that wanted to use it.
The only way you could access ATRAC was if you had bought sony hardware which automatically limited its appeal
I'd rather put my money on panasonic or samsung
Well you have a company president that only know media business not IT.
You can't even use Sony products within Sony... Look at location free for a example.... You can't see it using PS3 because sony wants you to buy PSP and hook it up to a TV... And the only reason they made it work on the PSP because the Tablet Screen version didn't sell...
And don't get me started on the PS3 I bought... You can only message and teleconference with only PS3 users... Why can't they put Skype at least on it? The Blu-ray, I can't tell much difference between Blu-ray and DVD if I use HDMI with both of them. I don't have a xbox but I wish I did now... At least you can chat with people on the PC, cellphone, and Mac.
There is more thing to complain about but it'll take too long to write...
Anyways, I also agree with the complains from other comments....
This company is a scam. I really hope this company goes bankrupt...
I said it to the scoffers and Sony fanboys here on CNET a long time ago when Sony continued to peddle their ATRAC DRM scheme after moving into the flash-based MP3 market, despite the absolute dominance of both Apple's FairPlay and MSFT's PlaysForSure. Then I called Sony a fool for wasting resources and sticking with a proprietary system that NO ONE ELSE would be able to use, let alone want. The fanboys couldn't see past the DRM...it was 'Sony', they beloved company; the makers of the PS2 couldn't possibly do wrong. Then less than a year after my comments Sony tucked its fat, obese tail and jumped on the PlaysForSure bandwagon as their digital ATRAC-infested MP3 device sales were virtually non-existent. On top of that came the rootkit fiasco to nearly sealed the deal for Sony and MP3: minor-league, bit player. And it seemed so infectious....the mess that was the PS3 launch appeared endemic within Sony, as was Samsung's tremendous gains in the TV marketplace and Sony's failing market share in other consumer electronics like camcorders. Even their e-reader has been the flop, despite being the first big name unit and supporting e-bookstore to market. And of course there's their flailing CD sales. At least their Blu-ray sales seem to be taking hold...but for how long? People still want a seamless, pain-free online delivery model for their media content; it's only a matter of time that HD bandwidth speeds will be able to contend if not surpass the fuss of obtaining hard media, and it'll be the CD downfall all over again.
Big corporations are run by people with equally big egos. Sony's no different. They thought (and probably still think) that because they're "SONY" that the world will indeed come to them. Yet with their red ink it's clear that this mindset is very wrong; it's NOT working. The trick as always been to be quick (or lucky) enough to see the problems and get the solutions better and faster than anyone else. Right now Apple does that better than anyone else. Sony's probably still befuddled at how a COMPUTER company could beat everyone else--especially Sony--at its own game: audio. They're still too entrenched in old-school thinking to be able to match Apple, let alone beat them especially now that it's clear that Apple is far more than just a computer company. Sony now preaches 'open' only because nothing else has worked. As long as they continue in this way as reactionary, they will always be the follower and never again be the leader at anything.
Shame too, because they do make some pretty nice PMPs.
- by maneeshpan1 May 13, 2009 9:59 AM PDT
- Sony's decision to use only closed proprietary DRM infected systems has personally turned me off from using their products. I do not use any Sony technologies be it Play Station, Blu Ray etc -- their using closed systems is just part of the problem -- in doing so and by adding DRM their willingess to treat consumers like criminals has led me to decide to not be a Sony customer in the future.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (39 Comments)I will not buy from Sony until they treat customers with respect. Yes piracy does exist but they are driving honest potential customers to piracy. I once read an article saying the real winner in the HD DVD vs Blu Ray format war (back before Blu Ray won over HD DVD) was Piracy TM.
I will not buy a product unless my fair use is acknowledged and respected by the copyright holder. For the same reason I now avoid buying on Apple's iTunes Storeany DRMed media.
Sony has damaged their reputation in recent years -- they're just as bad as Microsoft in the ethics department and treat consumers badly and use closed systems to discourage partnerships among competitors.
One thing that was nice about Microosft's approach to digital media is allowing different digital media stoores to integrate with Windows Media Player and allow different devices to work with the player --something not allowed by Apple in their iTunes/iPod model but the Windows Media model's ease of use and interface was still not as good as iTunes which is why iPods still command a lot of market share even as their market share growth is saturating.
Sony also uses a closed system for its products and I won't use Sony technology. I now prefer Linux systems -- Linux = freedom for the consumer.