Comments on: Samsung is now what Sony once was

South Korean company has become a competitor with both breadth of products and the appeal of a premium brand.
The New York Times

Time for Sony to Wake Up

Well said Samsung is the SONY of 21st century. I think Sony has lost its battle to be a leader like they did with old video technology (Betamax). May Sony should stop focusing on becoming proprietary with by developing technologies like Aatrac. Even though Sony now has a pretty decent mp3 player but if one wants to buy music they only have one choice Sony Music store. Samsung & other mp3 player you have tons of music stores to buy the music - Napster, Buy.com, etc. Another classic example their PDA & Cell phone using PALM OS/Symbian OS. I know other companies use PALM & Symbian but most profitable line of products run on MS OS technologies. Simple fact it is easier for majority of people to use MS powered devices.

Stringer needs to shake up things at Sony or else in couple of someone might do a hostile take over of Sony and end its legacy.

[quasarstrider]

Going after Microsoft would not help

Microsoft is a competitor, not someone to go follow.

Sony's major problems are that it does not listen to their customers and that they try to lock them in.

They should allow you to use any music store. It is like I said on my other post. Easy to get, that is what the customers want.

iPod does not use a Microsoft OS either. Apple is going to eventually lose their market to anyone making a product that allows you to use any shop or which has cheaper hardware.

[quasarstrider]

Sony's problems started...

...when they went into the content business. They stopped listening to their customers and started listening to their Movie and Music divisions.

The fact is, what customers want clashes most of the time with what the content producers want. Customers want something cheap, easy to use, easy to get, that you can use anyplace, anytime.

The content producers want something expensive, hard to get, that you can use only when they want you to use it.

Take Tivo as an example. It gives people the ability to see any show that airs on TV whenever people want, without messing with tapes. It also lets you skip adverts, which most people already manually skipped with their VCR remote or plain went to the bathroom, got more popcorn, whatever.

MP3 players allowed you to convert your existing media collection (CD, Vynil, Tape, whatever) to MP3 and listen it any time and any place you wanted to.

The big media business wants nothing of that. Mobility of content is anathema for them. In their mind it enables easier copying and removes price discrimination (DVD region control anyone?).

Until Sony becomes more customer focused they will continue to sink. Google is one company which seems to be getting the point so far.

[sanenazok]

Go go Samsung

I just love the Samsung products I own: LCD monitor, DVD Player, and a laser printer. The printers are the best, even HP should care.

[fred dunn]

Sony is unresponsive to consumers....

As well as just not making as good a product as they used to. I refuse to buy Sony even if it has the most features because of their poor support and "care less" attitude when you have a problem.
On the other hand Samsung has delivered "sweet spot" products (low cost and quality) for some time. I am not saying that Samsung didn't have their share of lemons but they were inexpensive enough to just throw away and buy a new one. Now samsung is my preferred brand.

Fred Dunn

[sunnymix]

if you can get a copy of samsung's

new employees training camp dvd, you will be amazed what that company does to its employee to get brainwashed and make them proud of their company. there is unrivaled employee royalty to samsung, and that's one of the few qualities that keep this company moving ahead.

[jackwei]

Sony in too many conflicting businesses

Sony has developed some of best technology ever, such as DAT and the Mini-disc. But Sony also became an entertainment company. So all of its great technology were emasculated, because of its potential to allow users to faithfully record entertainment products. So DAT is not able to be the best way for consumers. And Mini-Disc was not supported and was never married up with computers the way CD and DVD have.If you ask any musician about Mini-Disc, they use it to record reheasals but the lack of a digital output makes it essentially useless for demos.
Samsung better stick to its knitting and avoid compromises.