Comments on: How Sony failed to Connect, again
Electronics giant had a secret weapon in its fight against Apple's iTunes, but got "unmitigated disaster" instead.
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The next (and only other, in my opinion) reason for iTunes/iPod success is and always has been Apple's forte: User Interfaces. Apple seems to know exactly what the user wants in an interface and goes right for it. The styling and UI of the iPod, together with the timeliness of iTunes, all together in an easy to use, relatively inexpensive package is the equation the equalled Apple's huge hit. You can possibly better the UI, but you can't catch Apple.
Wise up, Sony. The moment has passed.
The next (and only other, in my opinion) reason for iTunes/iPod success is and always has been Apple's forte: User Interfaces. Apple seems to know exactly what the user wants in an interface and goes right for it. The styling and UI of the iPod, together with the timeliness of iTunes, all together in an easy to use, relatively inexpensive package is the equation the equalled Apple's huge hit. You can possibly better the UI, but you can't catch Apple.
Wise up, Sony. The moment has passed.
They got such big heads over the CD triumph and ever since have been trying to invent the next new standard that the world will license. It aint gonna happen. And it certainly aint gonna happen by foistering proprietary technology on the world simply for the sake of being unique: (see examples listed in other posts such as memory stick, etc.)
Consumers have no interest in rebuying solutions to technology issues that have already been solved by other providers unless the solutions offer substantial and unprecedented advantage to them... what does the memory stick offer than other flash media does not? Nothing.
Add to that the huge decline in hardware quality in the past 10 years, add to that the huge mis-step with the rootkit, add to that the desire to control consumers instead of free them (the minidisc was a good idea, just ill-timed and not promoted correctly - atrac is just a horrible idea aimed at locking consumers into Sonyland)...
It all adds up to the same problem facing corporations the world over: consumers aren't interested in boosting your bottom line. If you aren't providing a service to them, one that they actually want, they have no incentive to support you at all. You are not ENTITLED to profits, you have to earn them.
I was the biggest Sony fanboy... now I'm a hater. I've been used, betrayed, taken advantage of, and the only reason I wasn't assaulted by the rootkit offensive is that I had already given up buying CDs. Meanwhile all my old Sony hardware is slowly being replaced by non-Sony alternatives, which represents a real financial loss to Sony.
They got such big heads over the CD triumph and ever since have been trying to invent the next new standard that the world will license. It aint gonna happen. And it certainly aint gonna happen by foistering proprietary technology on the world simply for the sake of being unique: (see examples listed in other posts such as memory stick, etc.)
Consumers have no interest in rebuying solutions to technology issues that have already been solved by other providers unless the solutions offer substantial and unprecedented advantage to them... what does the memory stick offer than other flash media does not? Nothing.
Add to that the huge decline in hardware quality in the past 10 years, add to that the huge mis-step with the rootkit, add to that the desire to control consumers instead of free them (the minidisc was a good idea, just ill-timed and not promoted correctly - atrac is just a horrible idea aimed at locking consumers into Sonyland)...
It all adds up to the same problem facing corporations the world over: consumers aren't interested in boosting your bottom line. If you aren't providing a service to them, one that they actually want, they have no incentive to support you at all. You are not ENTITLED to profits, you have to earn them.
I was the biggest Sony fanboy... now I'm a hater. I've been used, betrayed, taken advantage of, and the only reason I wasn't assaulted by the rootkit offensive is that I had already given up buying CDs. Meanwhile all my old Sony hardware is slowly being replaced by non-Sony alternatives, which represents a real financial loss to Sony.
Perhaps both... I've never understood the need to make "test" posts. Just friggin' jump in and give it a shot.
Perhaps both... I've never understood the need to make "test" posts. Just friggin' jump in and give it a shot.
Sony has done this many times, only to get complaints from the 3rd party companies about the Japanese hardware, and revised (missed) release dates.
Usually the problem boils down to a combination of
- Miscommunication between Japan and the U.S. company.
- Sometimes there are unresolved bugs in the firmware
- More typically there are showstoppers in the software provided by the 3rd party company
And congratz to the U.S. team that refused to release the product, I can only guess, but the "Sony" U.S. team probably had a QA team that found mucho bugs galore in the 3rd party companies products, and enough show-stoppers to block release.
Generally when you rely on a small (practically startup) company to develop your flagship product you get the following issues:
- Inexperience at the lower implementation levels of the operation.
- Miscommunication (sometimes mistrust) between your company and the 3rd party
- A sense of complete detachment of your company's problems from the actions of the 3rd party company.
The benefits:
- If the software isn't delivered, you don't have to pay for it. Instead what you pay for is the cost of the lost opportunity.
I reccomend that Sony do this (in Future out-sourcing of software development).
- Bring the tiny-puny company you are contracting with on-site (Sony has mucho office space in California). Watch them like a hawk (learn a lesson from Trump on this).
- Get your in-house QA working with the development of the 3rd party company.
- Get Japan to own up to any firmware issues, early on, in order to save development and testing time.
Sony has done this many times, only to get complaints from the 3rd party companies about the Japanese hardware, and revised (missed) release dates.
Usually the problem boils down to a combination of
- Miscommunication between Japan and the U.S. company.
- Sometimes there are unresolved bugs in the firmware
- More typically there are showstoppers in the software provided by the 3rd party company
And congratz to the U.S. team that refused to release the product, I can only guess, but the "Sony" U.S. team probably had a QA team that found mucho bugs galore in the 3rd party companies products, and enough show-stoppers to block release.
Generally when you rely on a small (practically startup) company to develop your flagship product you get the following issues:
- Inexperience at the lower implementation levels of the operation.
- Miscommunication (sometimes mistrust) between your company and the 3rd party
- A sense of complete detachment of your company's problems from the actions of the 3rd party company.
The benefits:
- If the software isn't delivered, you don't have to pay for it. Instead what you pay for is the cost of the lost opportunity.
I reccomend that Sony do this (in Future out-sourcing of software development).
- Bring the tiny-puny company you are contracting with on-site (Sony has mucho office space in California). Watch them like a hawk (learn a lesson from Trump on this).
- Get your in-house QA working with the development of the 3rd party company.
- Get Japan to own up to any firmware issues, early on, in order to save development and testing time.
They are have so many divisions worried that they are geting cut out of the pie, they end up hurting everyone ... Sony should've been first with a DVD-recorder but were so worried about cutting into Sony DVD sales, they ended up selling really expensive machines with limited capabilities ... same with the portable audio player insisting on only ATRA 3 as a format because that was theirs - nevermind there were 50 BILLION mp3 tracks already out there andw hat consumers prefered ... look at how crippled the PSP is - it couldn't play movies because they wanted to sell UMD discs ... you had to load everything on Sony memory sticks, etc, etc ... Sony is getting to be like gov't bureaucrts - insyead of remembering there are there to serve us, it's the other way around - man, our jobs would be so much easier without annoying customers ...
"Sony's proprietary formats are bad" is another of the oft-repeated memes of the past few years that gets lots of play but little examination. If you want to rail on Sony for choosing rabid copy protection over respect for their customers, or paranoid anti-modding lockdowns of the PSP firmware, or Connect as a hemorrhaging mess for which there is no excuse, or even just general arrogance, I'm with ya. But many of the things people accuse Sony of are also common practice among many other companies, and are incorporated in numerous non-Sony products that are quite successful.
They are have so many divisions worried that they are geting cut out of the pie, they end up hurting everyone ... Sony should've been first with a DVD-recorder but were so worried about cutting into Sony DVD sales, they ended up selling really expensive machines with limited capabilities ... same with the portable audio player insisting on only ATRA 3 as a format because that was theirs - nevermind there were 50 BILLION mp3 tracks already out there andw hat consumers prefered ... look at how crippled the PSP is - it couldn't play movies because they wanted to sell UMD discs ... you had to load everything on Sony memory sticks, etc, etc ... Sony is getting to be like gov't bureaucrts - insyead of remembering there are there to serve us, it's the other way around - man, our jobs would be so much easier without annoying customers ...
"Sony's proprietary formats are bad" is another of the oft-repeated memes of the past few years that gets lots of play but little examination. If you want to rail on Sony for choosing rabid copy protection over respect for their customers, or paranoid anti-modding lockdowns of the PSP firmware, or Connect as a hemorrhaging mess for which there is no excuse, or even just general arrogance, I'm with ya. But many of the things people accuse Sony of are also common practice among many other companies, and are incorporated in numerous non-Sony products that are quite successful.
Sony's problem isn't proprietary formats per se, it's the fact that many of their proprietary formats aren't actually designed to solve any sort of problem, other than "We want you to give us more money." Some people may scoff at Blu-ray, but at least it's a format that's intended to provide a specific benefit. There's nothing wrong with Sony wanting to own a format and make money from it, as long as it's actually providing some value that other formats don't (Blu-ray does that, Minidisc did that for a while, some others are more questionable).
I personally don't get the outcry over UMD, given that it's a PSP-specific format; I see why people aren't buying UMD movies, but not why some people actually seem angry that UMD exists. I don't see people outraged that the Nintendo DS and GBA use proprietary cartridge formats, or that my PS2 can't read Xbox discs, or even that the Gamecube uses non-standard discs. I guess perhaps they've gotten so used to lashing out at Sony that it's a reflex...
Sony has vision, certainly more so than many of their competitors, particularly in creating new types of products and generating excitement around them. They may complicate the electronics field unnecessarily, but I for one think it would get rather stale and boring if every technology company were only concerned about interoperability, standards and compliance. You need only to look at far as the iPod to see whether an inspired proprietary product can utterly crush an entire field of similar, unremarkable products designed around open formats.
mark d.
even AAC is plain readable on linux !
only the sold aac by itunes are closed to ipod+itunes
it"s easy and really explained by apple to full the ipod of mp3 or
rippen legally cd audio
so the ipod was open, open to the most known audio format
it helped people to listen music
and itunes music store was sold as a GAIN, a VALUE of ipod
and for what people can say : ipod uses generic open mp3
apple was very careful and was adamant to tell "people, it's a
product designed for you and your life"
it's not what medias and people felt with the sony connect
platform.
minidisc ? yes
memory stick ? not so sure
connect ? no
Sony's problem isn't proprietary formats per se, it's the fact that many of their proprietary formats aren't actually designed to solve any sort of problem, other than "We want you to give us more money." Some people may scoff at Blu-ray, but at least it's a format that's intended to provide a specific benefit. There's nothing wrong with Sony wanting to own a format and make money from it, as long as it's actually providing some value that other formats don't (Blu-ray does that, Minidisc did that for a while, some others are more questionable).
I personally don't get the outcry over UMD, given that it's a PSP-specific format; I see why people aren't buying UMD movies, but not why some people actually seem angry that UMD exists. I don't see people outraged that the Nintendo DS and GBA use proprietary cartridge formats, or that my PS2 can't read Xbox discs, or even that the Gamecube uses non-standard discs. I guess perhaps they've gotten so used to lashing out at Sony that it's a reflex...
Sony has vision, certainly more so than many of their competitors, particularly in creating new types of products and generating excitement around them. They may complicate the electronics field unnecessarily, but I for one think it would get rather stale and boring if every technology company were only concerned about interoperability, standards and compliance. You need only to look at far as the iPod to see whether an inspired proprietary product can utterly crush an entire field of similar, unremarkable products designed around open formats.
mark d.
even AAC is plain readable on linux !
only the sold aac by itunes are closed to ipod+itunes
it"s easy and really explained by apple to full the ipod of mp3 or
rippen legally cd audio
so the ipod was open, open to the most known audio format
it helped people to listen music
and itunes music store was sold as a GAIN, a VALUE of ipod
and for what people can say : ipod uses generic open mp3
apple was very careful and was adamant to tell "people, it's a
product designed for you and your life"
it's not what medias and people felt with the sony connect
platform.
minidisc ? yes
memory stick ? not so sure
connect ? no
The worst part was the software that came with it. The software was given to convert Audio CDs and MP3s to an atarc CD. On top of it, it was a one step process; you import your list of mp3s in the software and click on the Record button. It would convert them to Atrac and store them in a temporary folder and finally burn them on a CD. Sometimes it would hang while converting and you would have to start all over again. For some reason, you can't use the files that are already converted. After couple of attempts, I got my first Atrac CD made and it had almost 250 tracks at a decent quality and this was the only thing I liked about it.
To sum up, though their products are great in physical quality (hardware) and technology, but they really suck in user interface and ease of use. I never tried making an Atrac CD again
- Sony Customer
- by Riyan.M June 2, 2006 1:20 AM PDT
- I purchased a Sony Walkman CD player 3 years ago and it could play Audio CDs, MP3s and Atrac format CDs. Overall the product was very sturdy and even after rough use for a long time, it still works fine, (though I haven't used it since I got my new SDA Music). The only problem with the product is it's user interface. I agree it was an old model, but it had a very tiny screen with only 1 line display and no backlight.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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-
- and the point is...
- by Stan Johnson June 2, 2006 8:32 AM PDT
- Sony products suck. If the user interface is not good it makes the hardware worthless.
- Like this
-
Showing 2 of 3 pages (118 Comments)The worst part was the software that came with it. The software was given to convert Audio CDs and MP3s to an atarc CD. On top of it, it was a one step process; you import your list of mp3s in the software and click on the Record button. It would convert them to Atrac and store them in a temporary folder and finally burn them on a CD. Sometimes it would hang while converting and you would have to start all over again. For some reason, you can't use the files that are already converted. After couple of attempts, I got my first Atrac CD made and it had almost 250 tracks at a decent quality and this was the only thing I liked about it.
To sum up, though their products are great in physical quality (hardware) and technology, but they really suck in user interface and ease of use. I never tried making an Atrac CD again