business

Fears, hopes grow for Sony under new president

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“People have said the long promised synergy between software and hardware is a ghost that no one has ever seen,” said Hagiwara. “But if anyone can make it real, it’s Hirai.”

The Japanese are good at hardware. A past president of Sony went to the US and saw the size of the insurance company buildings and wondered why they couldn't do that too. Sony moved into insurance, and a host of other software. They employed a foreigner to make the software end of the business happen. They are now thinking to sell electronic book software. But the Japanese are just bad at it. The Japanese don't feel ego-invested in software or anything that they can't see. When it comes to software it is all red tape. They think of all the problems rather than the possibilities. There is one exception to this: software that you can see, game software and animation. If anyone can make it real, it may be Hirai who is a game software person, but I would like to see Sony make 40 inch OLED tvs with Ubuntu that can play Youtube. Leave the Ubutun and Youtube to the gaijin, do the hardware instead Sony.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Like "I said so" a year ago, the time for Sony is long past. Typical Japanese management wouldn't allow for diversification 20 years ago when it had a chance to keep pace with the Koreans, now the Chinese, so too little, too late. I would recommend you get rid of your Sony stocks now.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

J-electronics makers such as Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, and to an extent Toshiba, are in a crisis, period. Unless they make structural/systematic changes--as opposed to cosmetic--their years are numbered.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The entire industry- not just Japan- is falling behind Apple and Samsung. Apple's philosophy of simple, elegant design and intuitive user interfaces has had everyone playing catch up for a decade.

It's do or die for all companies. They don't need to copy Apple, they need to better them. Thats how Sony will turn it around.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I am working in public schools in Japan. I see everyone drive big fat cars there financed with taxpayers money.

But they don`t do for the country what they get paid for. They do not prepare these children for the future they are going to face. When is Japan going to realize that life is change and that things are not as they used to be 40 or 50 years ago. It is not a question of working yourself into the grave and being cheaper anymore.

You have to be smarter!!!

Stop using your head to push the cart! Use it to think about how to get it out of the bog.

Train your kids in independent thinking, in questioning things, and Sony might one day be the next Apple.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

“The management has failed,” he said. “I am worried. I lost a lot of money.”

Unfortunately for Japan, Sony is not the only company about which this is being said.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Sony cannot even keep up with Chinese manufactures in terms of quality/price now. Huawei and ZTE have released smartphones that far exceed sony's overpriced and weak xperia handsets. Sony has not even developed the "edgeless TV" that Samsung created two years ago, which lg has also developed. Samsung's smartTVs will soon stream HD games running off of powerful servers, which will cause playstations to become obsolete. I hope Sony will be put out of its misery soon.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

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