“Sony Corp said it will release a product by the end of the year to compete with Apple Computer Inc’s popular portable digital music player iPod,” AFX reports.
“Ando also dismissed rumours the company will buy Apple, saying it ‘has become too expensive because of the success of iPod.’ Chairman and chief executive Nobuyuki Idei added: ‘We have put in place a very aggressive plan to become number one again’ in portable music,” AFX reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We thought the Sony Network Walkman was supposed to kill the iPod.
Apple ‘has become too expensive because of the success of iPod.’
How interesting. So they were, it seems, thinking about buying Apple.
Blah blah blah…
Sony would be much smarter to partner with Apple in the digitial entertainment arena. By trying to compete directly with the iPod, they will just continue to embarrass themselves.
In fairness to Sony and all other iPod competitors out there, how stupid would they sound if they came out and said “we’re planning on releasing a product that blows”. Of course they’re going to try and knock the iPod off–nobody should expect less. Whether they actually succeed is a different matter entirely.
That’s assuming Apple was for sale.
I don’t buy that argument. Apple is more valuble now because of the iPod, but the company wouldn’t have gone for chump change a few years ago, either.
Let me guess…Sony’s iPod Killer #2 will be getting rid of the ATRAC format. As long as they don’t add WMA support…
If you have $36 Billion (US) or so, it can be yours. That’s also counting on no counter bids, it could cost MUCH more. You would also be without Steve Jobs- he’s not going to work for anybody.
‘We have put in place a very aggressive plan to become number one again’ in portable music,”
So, they will license the iPod like HP! I’m not seeing other way.
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BTW, another iPod wannabe bites the dust:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000790032085/
as much as I like gigglin’ at Sony, they do make a nice LCD tv.
“You would also be without Steve Jobs- he’s not going to work for anybody.”
NoPCZone,
Well said, but it’s more than that. Jobs’ presence at Apple is like a double-edged sword to potential buyers. You can’t live with him, but who could replace him? Sony actually had exploratory talks with Apple about 4 years ago, but the then-CEO of Sony (not sure if it was Ando) was reportedly highly put off by Jobs’ “arrogance”.
The question of succession is also critical to Apple as well. When Jobs retires or dies, how will Apple fare without him? What arrogant, hard-headed, hard-charging visionary do they have waiting in the wings? Jobs is exceedingly charming, but by all reports is not very likable, with a volatile temper and serious anger management issues, but his leadership is critical to Apple’s drive to innovate. Look at what happened to Apple during the years he was absent from the company, and look at Sony after Akio Morita retired. There is a decades-old legend in Cupertino that people are afraid to get into the elevator with Jobs, because chances are that they might no longer be employed by the time they reach their floor.
Buy Apple? Ha! Look, I’ve been an Apple investor for over 7 years and have followed them very closely since the return of Jobs. They now have almost $7 Billion in cash and no debt. Assuming they don’t gobble up some other company with some of that war chest, it’s very realistic that they will have over $10 Billion before the end of the year. This past quarter alone they increased their cash position by $1.5 billion! Anyway, what I’m getting at is it’s not unrealistic that in a year or two Apple will be a serious threat to buy companies like Sony. Call me crazy – just remember that numbers don’t lie.
Just cause they said they were not buying Apple does not mean they are not thinking of joining Apple in a few projects. Maybe when this #2 iPod killer goes down in flames after they think the have “fixed” the previous versions errors, they will realize they NEED to join Apple to be #1, cause right now thay have #2 all over their face
Is this admission that the Network Walkman NW-HD1 does not currently compete with the iPod?
Magic word: sure
if Sony really wanted to crush Apple, they’d buy or merge with Toshiba, and stop selling the miniature HDs. No HDs = no iPods. Won’t happen, though…
beats me brings up a good point. How many companies other than Apple has the iPod helped? We tend to focus on the thriving 3rd part accessory people, but what about the HD makers, the display makers, the chip makers.
Anyone want to do the leg work on Toshiba’s stock price or Seagate’s or Sigma-Tel’s?
“as much as I like gigglin’ at Sony, they do make a nice LCD tv.”
Um, actually, a big part of Sony’s problem is that, along with missing the boat on digital music, they also missed the boat on flat tv’s, both LCD and plasma. They are re-selling other company’s components.
They are using Samsung LCD panels.
The real iPod killer is already here and you pathetic Mac zealots know it. The iPod just can’t compete any more in features, usability, and hip-factor. Get over it already and just move on!
Sound the iPod death knell.
Uhmmmmm, NoMacForYou. Check out Jack A’s link a few posts above yours.
“Look at what happened to Apple during the years [Steve Jobs] was absent from the company”
Yeah, look at it…
Apple’s highest “market share” was when Jobs was not with the company. Some of Apple’s coolest technology came along while Jobs was not with the company (speech recognition, Newton, Color Quickdraw). Don’t forget the Macintosh II, the switch to PowerPC, PowerBooks, FireWire development, etc. all happened while Jobs was gone.
Is it just me, or did NoMacForYou get replaced by a “ringer” sometime in the last week or so? I seem to remember a time when he wasn’t so obviously a silly troll.
I haven’t visited the site much over the last week, so I can’t attest to any noticeable change in NoMacForYou’s posts, but from what I’ve seen recently there’s virtually no change from the hostility, vitriol, and unreasonable attacks that we’ve always seen from that character.
So this confirms that for now, Sony will continue to compete against Apple in the portable music player space.
But it says nothing about the future of Sony Connect, or whether Sony will be able to license Fairplay, or what partnership Sony might have with Apple in the area of HD, or whether Apple will provide software for a Cell-based device.
Analogous to HP partnering in the music player space but competing against Apple in the computer space.
LordRobin – It’s not just you.
NOPCZONE..
Brilliant… I never thought of that..
Yeah sure you can blow 30Billion.. money Sony doesn’t have.. to pick up Apple, without all its best people, including Steve Jobs, the heart and soul of the company…
I think we got a glimpse of what a Sony Keynote looks like.. from the last MacWorld…
TEE HEE
BTW — have you checked Apple’s market cap recently?
Sony doesn’t have $40-billion to spend on Apple. If anything, Apple could buy Sony.
Thankfully, Steve’s smarter than that. Sony is the Disney of consumer electronics.
Tera Patricks
Mac360.com