“Sony hasn’t had a good year and things are about to get much worse. With litigation against the firm proliferating at an impressive pace and the danger of both astronomical penalties and criminal filings increasing it is becoming increasingly likely that we may be seeing the last days of this once great firm,” Rob Enderle writes for Technology Pundits.
“In case you missed it, Sony’s record label Sony BMG issued CDs with rootkits that, when installed, open Windows up to a variety of nasty attacks. Currently there are two Trojans and one Bot in the wild exploiting these Sony sourced weaknesses. In addition there is one class action law suite that has been filed in California and two pending in New York and Italy, with the potential for as many as there are States and countries very high,” Enderle writes. “Sony’s response has been ‘who cares’ http://www.theregister.co.uk making it likely that judges are not going to be kind in either their approach or the level of pain they inflict on the firm. Odds are we will see executive changes shortly.”
Enderle writes, “Regardless, whether you agree with Dan Gillmor and want to make a point or simply want to protect yourself (getting service out of a bankrupt company can be really painful) avoiding Sony products would probably be a good idea right now.”
Enderle provides a set of links about the Sony fiasco here.
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Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. Shockingly, Enderle’s making sense here about avoiding Sony products right now. Bankruptcy, however, is highly questionable.
Related articles:
Sony BMG ‘temporarily suspends’ production of music CDs with copy-protection scheme – November 11, 2005
Boycott Sony products: Sony music CDs can install kernel extensions on Mac OS X – November 10, 2005
Computer security firm: ‘Stinx’ virus hides within Sony’s copy protection scheme – November 10, 2005
Sony sued over copy-protected CDs – November 10, 2005
SonyBMG antics may well cause public to turn on them and turn many people onto Apple Macs – November 06, 2005
Report: Sony copy-protected CDs may hide Windows rootkit vulnerability – November 01, 2005
Analyst: Sony BMG’s boycott of Apple’s iTunes Music Store Australia won’t last long – October 24, 2005
Apple launches iTunes Music Store Australia – October 24, 2005
How to beat Apple iPod-incompatible Sony BMG and EMI copy-protected CDs – October 04, 2005
Japan music labels look to impose ‘iPod Tax’ while Sony, Warner still not signing with Apple iTunes – October 10, 2005
Why aren’t Sony, BMG, Warner, Victor making their artists’ music available on Apple’s iTunes Japan? – October 06, 2005
Sony and Warner holding out on Apple iTunes Music Store Australia – September 08, 2005
Musicians stage mutiny against Sony, defiantly offer music via Apple’s iTunes Music Store – August 10, 2005
Sony BMG and EMI try to force Apple to ‘open’ iPod with iPod-incompatible CDs – June 20, 2005
New Sony BMG copy-protected CDs lock out Apple iPod owners – June 01, 2005
Record company causes Apple to hit ‘pause’ on Australian iTunes Music Store – May 05, 2005
If Sony gets sued for this, then why isn´t Microsoft sued for letting every other virus in??????
This is a lawyer´s only lawsuit…the lawyers make all the money to go away.
First one has to prove damage.
That can´t be done. The Sony CD rootkit shit does not do damage, its the asshole writing the virus or adware that does the damage.
Next they should sue Microsoft for allowing a CD like Sony´s to put some software on a computer.
Sheesh this is so dumb and MDN, as usual, is lapping it up.
Enderle is wrong again, nothing new. And come on, once upon a time Sony was a great company. The fact is, in many areas they still are, but they have been making a lot of bad decisions of late. I don’t want them to die, I want them to shape up.
$86 million this year…is that what sony are saying? i expec them to lose more than that.
they have got alot of money but that isnt going to stay there forever, and neither will the investors if sony dont get releasing some shit hot products, and when was the last time you saw something of Sony and thought, i just have to have that!
thats right about twenty years ago when the walkman was the only thing going around.
their professional stuff is good, but again its pretty damned expensive and other competitors are moving in real fast.
I definately would not buy stock in them.
If they sell off Sony BMG to gain back focus on CE again, the big thing is, theyll still have to release great products to compete. even more so actually, because they wont have the music revenue to fall back on.
i just dont see them surviving in the long run, but theyll be around for a while.
and who knows they could get some execs that know what the hell a good product is. because thats what it comes down to, they just aren’t releasing good products.
KillBill:
I won’t bother pissing back at you regarding the “twit” remark. What would be the point.
As for MDN’s take, DNA covered half of it – I didn’t see their little blurb. Given how prominent their critiques about this guy have been in the past, I won’t offer an apology for that. And, frankly, it wouldn’t have changed what I said very much even if I had.
First, people like Enderly are blights on the tech landscape. As I’ve suggested here in the past, MDN should simply copy his screeds and drop the ‘synopsis & link’ method. Making a bunch of Mac Fanatics curious about what he’s said in total just sends his website traffic numbers through the roof, which he then turns around and uses to justify his self-proclaimed status as ‘anal-lyst’. It’s hypocritical for MDN to be – rightfully – dressing him down for his foolishness while simultaneously enabling him. Second, MDN’s lukewarm statement about rejecting his bankruptcy hypothesis is in no way equal to just how stupid an assertion it is to make in the first place. But because he’s dissing an Apple ‘enemy’ this time, he gets off light.
Par for the course for MDN – they’re too feckless, too often, when presented with a choice between objectivity and simple cheerleading. But I guess only a twit could see that.
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Even with all of Sony’s problems, this guy still doesn’t know what day of the week it is.
It is so simple, why doesn´t apple buy sony, as some ave suggested?
Uhhh… maybe because sony is ten times as big as apple?
Sony has their personal electronics, computers, components, reseach that brings in money through licensing technology used in things like CD´s DVDs blu ray DVDs, music and movies.
All that expereince, all that market share, that patent portfolio, that content would be extremely valuable to apple. but the problem is it is too valuable. Sony music is huge. Movies are huger. Now that sony has bought MGM and Columbia, it owns most hollywood movies. as in more than 50% of all movies ever made by the big american studios. And that isn´t even a particularly huge part of their net worth, it´s just a startling example.
If sony wanted to merge, which is doubtful, but if they wanted apple´s brand, since it is one of the handful in the world that is stronger than sony´s, and if they wanted OS X, or greater control over the entire consumer experience, from shooting the movie to editting it on their software on their hardware to play on their tv´s and portable players, maybe they would want to merge with apple, but apple could never buy them out.
unless it continues it´s current growth for the next 10 years, which i would be just fine with, except my eyes would pop out of my skull with surprise.
Odyssey67
For all your pompous indignitude and negativity why don’t you just quit reading MDN. Your anal ramblings about cheerleading and bias are as useless as Enderle (at least he gets paid for his opinion). IT’S CALLED MAC DAILY NEWS and since it’s theirs and not yours the editorializing can go down any way THEY choose (and personally I enjoy the MDN bias – refreshing in a world dominated by MicroShit). Feckless? Wow I’m really impressed with your vocab. Here’s a word you should be familiar with, Dickless
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Sony going under would be very bad for consumers. It’s the only electronics firm that gives a damn about quality, looks and innovation
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Well if that were even half-true they wouldn’t be in this mess, now would they?
root… kit…
If the lawyers can be told to put PR issues equal to legal issues then Sony will recall all of the CDs that are causing problems, provide an easy to use program to clear the crap out of users computers and give everyone who returns a tainted CD a coupon for 2 – 3 Sony CDs of their choice, with a release of liability on each coupon.
Sony is moving too slow right now and it makes them look guilty, which is what happens when you let lawyers handle the problem. Fire the dumb SOBs that approved the program and work hard to get on the good side of the consumers again. Right now DRM isn’t important to Sony – getting back in the consumers’ good graces is.
iMaki writes: “Sony… [is] the only electronics firm that gives a damn about quality, looks and innovation.”
I’ll give you “looks and innovation,” but not quality. Every Sony product i’ve ever owned has died a premature death, so i just stopped buying Sony products.
Enderle is missing the boat. Playstation is where Sony made all of their profit last year, PSP and the new Playstation can generate profits for years to come. In fact, what Sony should be doing is stripping out all the gaming logic out of the PSP, simplifying the controls, bumping up the sound output to headphones, and call the new product the Movieman.
The PSP is now the smallest mobile platform you would want to watch a movie on, (sorry video ipod, the screen needs to be bigger). Sony used to be great at refining their product. Here’s where they get a chance to do it all again, plus since they are a vertical company with their own studio, they don’t have to renegotiate rights to release movies on UMD.
Al wrote:
“Please correct me if I am wrong…
Doesn’t SONY own the publishing rights to the Beatles Catalogue from MJ not being able to pay his debts?
If Sony’s Music division needs money, wouldn’t Jobs be willing to buy the Beatle’s catalogue from them?
It might be a huge bargaining tool with Apple Corps.”
OMG, if this situation is indeed true, an Apple/Sony deal would make perfect sense.
Steve J, GET on the phone and start negotiating some deals!! Sony could use the cash, iTMS could use Beatles tracks, the Beatles brand could use being formally freed from MJ’s perverted paws, and it would give Apple a major tool in dealing with a few BHMs (Butt-Head Musicians, a twist from the Carl Sagan episode). Sounds like everyone wins to me.
Sony, back in the 80’s and before made relatively quality consumer grade stuff, but by the 90’s it turned into s__t. MDN keep up the great work, because of you I don’t have to read other people’s FUD/sillyness, and I usually get a chuckle along the way.
I do a lot of pro video. Sony burned us hard with DVCAM. I’m not forgetting. Sony DRM? I’m not buying it. Somewhere along the way Sony lost their Steve Jobs and the smouldering pile of a once great empire, now floundering, shows it clearly.
“I can’t help but wonder what Enderle’s home town does for an idiot since he left.”
Good one!
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Profits are fraction of sales. The risk is that a brand-wide boycott results in a relatively small reduction in sales of numerous products sufficient to degrade the company’ ability to cover fixed costs. We could see serious bleeding from this. How much of SONY’s market cap is goodwill? That’ll drop too. Dump the stock? Keep buying the brand? It’s your choice.
Has anyone heard from Stringer on this? The silence is deafening. He could end up as a casualty too depending on the amount of corporate pain. Can anyone guess what this will cost that whole company? Could it be in the billions range?
My take: If SONY has to suffer badly so that no other company would ever contemplate doing a similar thing, or would think twice before degrading consumer freedoms, then it would be well worth it from the consumer standpoint. So, despite never having had any of 20 SONY products fail on me, I’m feeling schadenfreude. My rights as a consumer is more important to me.
A “class action law suite”? That must be a better place to stay than a Motel 6. If Rob E. knew anything at all about the law, then he would write of a class action lawsuit. Oh, and he also overlooked (or at least hid from his readers) the harm the rootkit does to Macs.
What a shock…. more idiocy from Enderle. Sony isn’t even close to bankruptcy, it’s a ridiculous and laughable contention.
Heidi says: “For all your pompous indignitude and negativity why don’t you just quit reading MDN. Your anal ramblings about cheerleading and bias are as useless as Enderle (at least he gets paid for his opinion).”
Hey – just when I almost gave up on this thread … Listen Heidi, however I’m coming across here, “pompous”, “negative”, and “rambling” are words that no one I actually know would use to describe me. “Anal” neither, but then again I think it’s probably safe to say that anyone who spends time on sites like these, and actually writes an opinion, has an abiding interest in their content. That certainly does describe me. Looks like it describes you too.
“IT’S CALLED MAC DAILY NEWS and since it’s theirs and not yours the editorializing can go down any way THEY choose (and personally I enjoy the MDN bias – refreshing in a world dominated by MicroShit). Feckless? Wow I’m really impressed with your vocab. Here’s a word you should be familiar with, Dickless.”
Oof! Well, there goes my manhood. It’s a shame when commentary sinks to levels like this, but hey … what are ya gonna do? Some people just need to ‘go there’ when nothing else comes to them. Hey – I guess that describes you too, Heidi! Nonetheless, I won’t piss back on you, anymore than I would KillBill or anyone else. Chalk it up to my vaunted “vocab”, or just a better upbringing, but I don’t need to ‘go there’.
I will say that I enjoy MDN as a place that works at the clearing house level, of providing a lot of Mac news in one place. Not that they post all of it, but no one’s perfect and they do a good job. And I like that they provide an outlet where people can express and bounce ideas around in an easy way – it’s great to hear from people who can actually provide some depth to whatever the news or opinion is presented. However, when anyone starts a site like this, where they also put their OWN opinion out there, next to and regarding the news and opinions of others (as MDN clearly does), they should understand and accept that some critiques, necessarily, will be coming their way. And anyone who contributes should understand it might come there way too. I know I do. So no crying about it, ok?
The editors of MDN are a smart bunch. And they take it upon themselves to use their intelligence to try to lead public opinion. If their going do that they should be consistent about it, beyond consistently yelling “Apple yea!” I mean. Otherwise, who needs it? Just post the stories and let us ‘plebes’ duke it out.
As for Enderle getting paid for his expertise and me not … how do you know? After all, what a shame it would be to have spent years developing such a great vocabulary and never putting it to use. Besides, you seem convinced I can’t make a living with my dick, so what else have I got?
Have a nice weekend sweetheart
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Right you are Odyssey67.
You are just as entitled to his opinion as anybody else. Remember the old chestnut “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it”. This is the cornerstone of democracy and our political freedoms.
Heidi and any other “thought police” can go “feck” themselves.
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Changing topic, I have a law degree from an Australian Uni, and “bakruptcy” in Aussi and English law is a concept that only applies to individuals. Perhaps it is the same in the US. I believe the words “insolvent” & “insolvency” are what the authors and MDN are actually referring to.
Obviously companies are not “real people” but are creatures of legislation, so usually different legal principles and legal jargon apply.
Again, this raises the issues of what sort of analyst and consultant Enderle is if he doesn’t even know the difference between basic personal and corporate law.
PM7100 and others…
Before we start theorising about Apple buying Sony, let’s consider the [B]massive restructuring costs that are necessary to put Sony back on its feet, plus the cost of doing the deal itself.
Firstly, Apple would not be able to afford Sony as a cash purchase which means a whole load of stock dilution in a merger in which Sony’s shareholders would have around one-third of the company; this is hardly likely to please Apple’s shareholders given that a the vast majority of Sony’s valuation now comes from its balance sheet rather than a flourishing business and much of that balance sheet is going to get burnt during the restructuring which – IMHO – would see Sony withdraw from from numerous CE segments (such as conventional DVD players and CRT televisions) where the products have become heavily commodotised, or end-markets where maintaining Sony’s brand equity is not viable from a commercial standpoint (ask yourself if Bang & Olufsen maintain a presence in the Ivory Coast).
Secondly, if you want to put Apple Corps under pressure, the cheaper ($3 billion to you), more elegant and more strategically viable method would be to buy EMI Group plc, who still control the actual recordings of the Beatles and can – if they so choose – withdraw ALL of the Beatles recordings from retail environments (remember, EMI needs to negotiate with Apple Corps for Beatles material to be released on new media [remember the delay for the Beatles catalog to be made available on CD], but EMI isn’t obliged to make that material available: in short, an EMI Group owned by Apple Computer could put Apple Corps under siege effectively “starving” them out.
The plus side of this approach would, as I have said many times, be that Apple Computer would then gain a proxy seat at the record industry’s table whilst also gaining control of an enormous music and publishing catalog.
I’m sure when the PS3 is released Sony will be back in the good books. One minute your down, the next you’re right back up again.
The PSP is now the smallest mobile platform you would want to watch a movie on, (sorry video ipod, the screen needs to be bigger). Sony used to be great at refining their product. Here’s where they get a chance to do it all again, plus since they are a vertical company with their own studio, they don’t have to renegotiate rights to release movies on UMD.
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I admit it, I have a DS.. the Sony Portable is a bit of a joke. Movies cost around $30 in an age where your average 12 year old knows how to use p2p for downloading movies. The games suck, and the battery life is atrocious (kind of key for a portable)
The Playstation will be profitable, but the PSP division is just spinning its wheels right now. They are losing marketshare fast.
I would say that little game machine PS3 is the only thing Sony has going for it right now.
(PS. The Gameboy Advance SP is outselling the PSP in JP, let alone the red-hot DS platform)
Do what you’re good at, Sony.
PS3 will be miles ahead of x-box 360–don’t waste it.