“Sony is preparing to take another swing at Apple Computer’s iPod digital music player, a top Sony executive said today. The company is developing a new music player that will go on sale in the U.S. and other markets over the next year, alongside a companion download service and software, said Takao Yuhara, senior vice president of Sony, at a briefing with reporters in Tokyo. The player will be ‘typically Sony,’ he said,” Martyn Williams reports for IDG News Service. “Apple has a commanding lead in the music player market and is particularly strong in the U.S., where it’s estimated to command more than 80 percent share… The new player will be launched within the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2007, Yuhara said.”
“Sony sold 4.5 million digital music players in the year to March, and expects this to rise to 5.5 million in the current year, the company said Thursday when it announced its financial results. In contrast, Apple shipped 8.5 million iPods in the first three months of this year alone, it said earlier this month,” Williams reports. “Sales of all audio products at Sony fell 6.2 percent in the last year.”
Full article here.
“Sony reported Thursday that losses for the January-March quarter widened to 66.5 billion yen ($581 million), worse than the 56.5 billion yen loss it marked the same period the previous year. Massive restructuring costs, as well as research and development costs for its usually profitable game division, were behind the red ink,” The Associated Press reports. “Sony shares tumbled 5 percent Friday… Yuhara said Sony planned to introduce a portable music player that will compete against Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod in the U.S. market within the current fiscal year through March 2007… He declined to give other details but said it will link with new kinds of music download services to win over American buyers.”
Full article here.
Typically Sony? As in, overstating capacity by measuring songs encoded bit rates whose quality approaches AM radio under a bridge? Or “typically Sony” as in creating goofy proprietary media formats that nobody uses? Or “typically Sony” as in failing to come up with an “iPod killer” for over half a decade and counting? Sony needed to give it up quite some time ago. It’s so far past too late in the digital music player market, that it’s now not even a joke. It’s just sad and perplexing. Concentrate on your TV business before Samsung buries your completely like Apple has in digital music players and online music services. Work on finally shipping the PlayStation 3. Play to your current strengths. Duh, forget about music, Sony: you lost that market long ago.
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Related articles:
BusinessWeek: Apple’s iPod+iTunes Store ‘kicking the stuffing out of Sony’ – March 03, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Sony’s Walkman Bean is cooked – February 13, 2006
Bear Stearns analyst: ‘Apple is becoming what Sony always wanted to be’ – January 27, 2006
Sony advises: Do not use Sony Connect software, music application causes ‘major problems’ – January 23, 2006
Apple tramples Sony in Japan: iPod grabs 60-percent share of DMP market, Sony drops under 10-percent – December 22, 2005
Sony’s quarterly profit drops by nearly half – October 27, 2005
Recurring MDN headline “(Company name) iPod killer”.
Sony,
Give it up already. How many “Beans” did you landfill? MDN’s right. Stop beating your head against the wall. You lost a long time ago.
There’s a point where you have to decide to stop wasting resources, Sony.
“History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of men.”
You can fit 1 Billion Songs in our new 20GB player!*
*Songs average 10 seconds in length, encoded in ATRAC3plus 8kbps mode.
Oh no there goes Tokyo….hehe
They still don’t get it.
A Few Sony Marketing Ideas:
Balkman – high capacity but it sometimes skips
Talkman – comes preloaded with Dr. Phil shows
Salkman – delivers a vaccine through the earbuds
Caulkman – it’s waterproof
Chalkman – it’s not waterproof
Darkman – an embarrassment for Liam Neeson but a career highlight for Larry Drake
Falkman – only plays pub songs that make fun of Argentina
Walkman 2006 – plays subsonic signals that cause your brain to experience deja vu (all over again)
Actually, I hope Sony puts up some viable competition. Keeps apple honest.
The Xbox team is probably calling it the “Delaystation” with glee.
The player will be ‘typically Sony,
Don’t forget about the famous SONY/BMG rootkit!
http://news.com.com/FAQ+Sonys+rootkit+CDs/2100-1029_3-5946760.html
P.S. Sony Marketing Ideas
. . . and the Walkwoman because it’s PC.
With so many people telling Sony to shove their players up their @%$, what design could be more perfect that the nicely rounded Walkman Bean??
A new player launched by Mar 2007… along with ANOTHER new software service to follow the Connect debacle?
Focus on PS3, Sony–something I actually want to buy!
How ironic. A Bean that’s not a gas.
re Gheem
….go go Godzilla!
BOC
Those of you who are demanding Sony to “give up” on their music business, just as the author of this article has, keep in mind that the same arguement can be said about Apple and its computer business. Apple “lost” the OS/platform war long ago. However, even with about 2% marketshare, Apple is still doing great, so does that mean Apple needs to give it up?
Also, it’s nice to have companies like Sony around constantly claiming to have the “iPod killer” right around the corner to keep Apple on its toes. Without them, Apple could just become lazy and uninnovative, a bit like Microsoft.
Sony still owns a sizable catalog of music, which means they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth when they want to compete with the iPod, since they are currently locked into a contract with Apple to sell those songs through the iTMS, aren’t they?
The New Model will have the flashy name of
H3554PXLMS Portable Digital Walkman
Finding it on the Sony Website will take between 50-60 clicks/links
“Or ‘typically Sony’ as in failing to come up with an “iPod killer” for over half a decade and counting?”
Pretty amazing, given that the iPod hadn’t been released 5 years ago…
I’m looking for a Mac programmer with 30 years of experience, can anyone help me?
mac user 47-
just following the humourous musings of pundit Ampar…LOL
MDN-“call”
call me when Sony does something right
SOMEONE MOVED THEIR CHEESE!
AHHHHHHHHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Suck it, Sony.
“typically sony” – another word for high-end crap!
Poor old sony – she’s not what shee used to be!
Once again, the recurring MDN “iPod Killer” strawman. Who exactly are you quoting when you say “iPod Killer”? Yourselves? Sony didn’t say that; you’re just putting words into their mouths so you can later joke about how they didn’t come close to killing the iPod.
I’m waiting for this summer’s headline:
Recurring joke: Apple preps ‘Windows killer’ – again
Dead Squirrel – picking nits, ya are – the original iPod was announced on October 23, 2001 – just over 4.5 years ago. Rounded up to whole years makes that 5 years ago, which is half a decade, in fuzzy terms.
Thanks, gheem! (More cowbell?)
I read somewhere that Kellogg’s is coming up with a new, super secret breakast food. It’s code name is “cereal killer.”
Sony is nothing but a pathetic shell of what it used to be. Instead of trying to create the next iPod killer, why don’t they just try making a good product for a change?
Why Sony, why?!!!
Why can’t you see the obvious marketing opportunity before your EYES! All you need to do is sacrifice the music player and do everything else. Market yourself as Apple-compatible: announce that you’re going to make all your Hollywood movies download on iPods via the iTMS, your DVD extras work on Macs, your stereos stream from Airports, your car stereos charge your Nanos, your LCD monitors work with all Macs, your wireless video streaming work with Mac mini’s, all your CDs work on Macs without rootkits, your HD cameras connect to Macs to burn movies with your DVD media and play on your HD TVs which also stream video from a Mac mini running Front Row. Mark your goods as “works with iPod and Macintosh”.
Make Sony the price premium product it used to be – more expensive but you know it is quality, will work and people can brag about their purchase. Make it so that if we purchase only Apple and Sony gear we are able to do everything we need.
I got a fever……and the only perscription that can cure it is more cowbell. (or less-also ran
‘ipod killers’)
ROTFL!
>”History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of men.”
‘God-zeerah!’
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A funny thing happened at Best Buy yesterday. A best buy employee was trying to sell a man an inferior MP3 player based on the fact it has FM radio. I was staning right next to the iPod FM radio adaptor. Must be desperate to push product taking up shelf space.
MacMan: “Must be desperate to push product taking up shelf space.”
Sounds like the Best Buy employee was being shelfish.
MDN mentions Samsung as a rival to Sony’s TV business, but I think that Samsung have plans that go way beyond that.
Samsung have come out of nowhere and produced a very compelling cellphone which might win sales that might have otherwise gone to Sony Ericsson.
Samsung are now building the memory for many iPods and will be making the controllers for the next generation of iPods. That’s an immense market.
Samsung are getting quite closely involved with Apple – who knows where that might lead ? We’ve already seen how Intel are pleased having Apple as a customer who doesn’t merely buy the best of what’s on offer, but who wants to get heavily involved with specifying the next generation of chips and making them even better, not merely faster. If Apple and Samsung are working together in the same way, then Samsung could be really going places soon.
Sony needs to pay careful attention to what Samsung are doing. Sony have a much higher profile at the moment, but Sony is a company that’s stagnating and has recently released a number of products which have failed. Sony are also annoying their music customers by using intrusive CD copy protection and also annoying their artists by failing to pay them a fair proportion of the revenue from iTMS. Sony is behaving badly on multiple fronts. Unless they can get their act together very rapidly and turn around the way they operate, there will be creating an opportunity for another company to overtake them.
Sony will be ‘Big in Japan’.
You heard it here first.
What Sony really needs to do, and what all of the other companies striving to compete with iPod need to do, is work together on a common interface for their devices to dock with, a common music service that will fit all of them, and common formats. This whole divided kingdom thing is obviously not working out for them.
Competition, however pathetic, is good for the market. Also, people can’t accuse Apple of MP3 player monopoly.
The problem with Sony is that their products are typical.
Apples at its best under pressure from competitotrs. In Apple fashion, kicking their asses beyond their drawing boards.
The thing about the iPod is, it’s not really all that great of a digital music player, and there are certainly players out there that can do more for less money, and are compatible with more formats, etc. The things that make the iPod edge out everyone else are dual platform compatibility (even if iTunes for Windows sucks major @$$), seamlessness of the overall functionality, and just how prevalent it is (everyone has one, so you’re not the odd kid on the block). The player itself is honestly mediocre.
As soon as the other companies quit trying to beat Apple on the hardware end of things, and focus more on the overall experience, and God forbid dual platform functionality, they will have something worth buying.
i – Podzilla .. zilla .. zilla .. !!!
Ampar .. You’re crackin’ me up. Mmmm, Shelfish
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