Comments on: Sony hires a professional fixer

The Japanese electronics giant, in the middle of an internal makeover, hires George Bailey from IBM, a longtime electronics industry consultant.

[alflanagan]

When a company gets called "arrogant" as much as Sony does, they don't need a fixer. They need an attitude adjustment.

[-fjtorres-]

Stringer knows what he wants to do.
Problem is, his competitors are already doing it; Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, all have figured out how to integrate hardware and content to create a synergy that distinguishes and boosts their products. And they are doing it *without* content they own outright.
Sony, on the other hand, owns music and movie studios as well as the platforms on which to deliver them and spend significantly more than their competitors with significantly less to show for their efforts. Their music service is history, their ebook format has already been displaced by Adobe's plague, and their last hope, PSN is a work in progress that doesn't seem to progress much. If anything, PSN seems to be moving backwards ,now that in a fit of corporate "wisdom" Sony decided to charge their partners for the privilege of giving away free content (demos, promotional videos, even bug fixes) to their customers.
Good luck to Mr Bailey but I'm thinking the only way to fix Sony is fire every single manager between Stringer and the low-level staff. And maybe not even then...
They are simply fighting too many wars--external *and* internal--against too many opponents and losing all of them.
And, ultimately, both Stringer and Bailey are gaijin...

[Captain Bebops]

I believe we are seeing an end of an era of mega companies. Ones that are too big to fail. Sony should probably spin off many divisions to make smaller manageable companies. I don't know why the heads of these companies wanted to build such big ones in the first place. Must have a lot to do with their egos which are probably very bruised right now and deservedly so.

[MythicalMe]

I have a couple of idea's. Save yourself some cash and remove your support of the IFPI, RIAA, MPAA and worry less about protecting your intellectual property with breakable DRM.

[loose_screw]

I think we all know what needs to be done to fix Sony. They can keep hiring different people, but that's not going to work if the culture doesn't change.

[Hernys]

Bailey's job is pretty simple. Sony knows full well that the PS3 will not make a dime in its lifetime. And that the PS3 already served its purpose, establishing Blu-Ray. Right now, the PS3 doesn't add a dime to PS3 business or strategy. So they should just kill it.
Of course, they can't kill the product and expect not to be burned by existing customers, but an effective strategy would be not to reduce the price of the PS3 any further, stop spending on PS3 marketing and only invest in keeping new games coming to the console. That way console sales would go down (which is good for the bottom line), the loss per console goes down as well, and they can even make a profit from game licenses. It could be expected to recover over a billion by making this move, which has no practical downside, other that some egos crushed.

[BtmnHatesRbn]

The same IBM that fired 300,000 in 2007, 150,000 in 2008? And does anyone buy their cash registers from IBM anymore? I have no faith in a company that's been shrinking since 1984.

[sharmajunior]

Sony makes great products. The only thing they need is a price fixer. Their products are priced too high compared to the same product at the competition.