| drkohler said: First of all, selling the Vaio part of the division will result in a loss. Nobody wants to buy a PC factory in Japan so the only value is in the Vaio brand name. You'll have to find somebody willing to take the risk for all the workers that come with the brand name. Not surprisingly, not even the Chinese (Lenovo) bit so there is this JIP entity (probably a state supported entity that tries to keep the employed in their jobs using taxpayer money). Nonethless Sony cannot just dump the Vaio people into this new construct and call it a day, they have to (at least partially) fund it. Hence the loss incured while actually selling something (what you get from the sale is less than what you pay for creating the new structure). The situation with the TV part is more dramatic as a lot more workforce is invovled. Shutting down factories and firing workers is almost impossible in Japan. Hence the reason why Sony has been floundering around the past years with heavy losses. Granted they can shut down some factory at some point (because they slowly lost workers by retirements and not hirng new people). That can take 10-15 years until you are left with just enough workers and factories with which you can make profit again. Until then, it would have meant probably another ten years of high TV losses for Sony. However, that takes too much time so the second worst solution is to outsource the whole TV business into its own brand. As with the Vaio part, this costs a lot of money up front. Once that new TV company is going, Sony can either decide to further subsidize it (technically almost the same situation as with just keeping the TV business and paying the losses on and on), or simply let the new company rot in some way ("You're on your own now.."), hoping the public backlash isn't immediately connected with the Sony brand name. |
I guess for Sony taking a short term hit in selling the Vaio is more worth it than continuing to bleed from it in the long run.
So in short, Sony has no hope to become profitable with their TV division for a decade or two to come. lol! Sadness!!!
