Sony To Post $2 Billion+ Loss

[Alby_da_Wolf]

kowenicki said:

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I dont think you have been paying attention.  Sony is already a very different company to what it was 5 years ago.  And if it is still around in 5 years that difference will be even more marked.  Sony is a shadow of its former self and shrinking all the time.  It may ultimately shrink back to just movies, music and gaming (with financial services).  That would be the quick solution... but a very brutal one to do over night.

At this point IMVHO, it could be even more sensible that Sony be taken over by a joint-venture of companies in its keiretsu, Mitsui, and the allied keiretsu Sumitomo, that should cut the branches without hope of profitability, keep the profitable ones like games, movies, music and finance and use Sony just as premium brand for TVs, co-owned and run in synergy and with economies of scale by the display producers in the two keiretsus. Same for phones. In those two markets Sony just isn't able to produce the whole range, from low to high end, and remain profitable, but this means not being able to realise economies of scale if not with other companies catering for the segments Sony isn't suitable to.
PS I agree that it would be very painful, both for the dead and resized branches, but the sooner they do it, the less the pain for the same result (or the more the result for the same pain), and the Japanese work and welfare system together with the skills of the workers of the branches to be cut or trimmed, leaving them more future opportunities than to less qualified ones, will make it less painful than what it would be in many other countries.