Sony Sees The End Of Smartphones

[3sexty]

theprof00 said:

3sexty said:
This is the very type of attitude from Sony which has landed them in their current financial predicament. Instead of innovating they are simply playing down the business they are supposed to be investing in. Ipod anyone?? With the exception of Playstation, Sony have pretty much let the rest of the business down. This cannot be sustainable in the long run. With personal computing devices gone, what next might someone ask? tv's, phones etc.. Playstation won’t be enough to turn the tide I would think. The company needs to start innovating again like Apple, Google, Microsoft, LG and Samsung or it will spell the ultimate end for them. The attitude needs to turn around very quickly.

Actually it's the opposite. Sony's problem in the past 20 years or so has been investing too much in playing "follow the leader". They haven't been behind anything really substantive other than assisting with BluRay and helping push the HD tv movement.

Sony's innovations have actually cost them more than anything. Remember UMD? Ultra Mini-disc? The minidisc format was assumed to become the new replacement to cds. But Apple brought in hard drive based storage through mp3s and totally destroyed the entire investment.

Sony's problem isn't that they don't innovate. Sony's problem is that they see trends moving in a direction counter to what happens in reality.

You see, it was the OLD Sony that would have come out with the "apple watch" first, or the google glass, or the "kinect".

In fact, they had smartwatches in development as early as 2013, when the first one was ever unveiled. My point is, they innovate into things people don't actually want. What Sony, NEEDS to do, is find truly groundbreaking ideas. Instead of investing in a tech because it's different, they should be investing in what makes a product successful. Remember, they had the eyetoy before the wii and before kinect, and they didn't know what to do with it. They made it simply because it was different, not because they believed in it.

Yes I think you have provided some very good perspective here. There needs to be a balance between true innovation and knowing what the market needs or wants. Sometimes venturing onto untested ground with ground breaking ideas isnt the approach that will guarentee success. So yest you are right, this isnt just a question of innovation or the lack of. I stand corrected to this extent.