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[DCharlie]

How is Sony failing? How do you measure company's sucess?

number of car parking spaces is the FSA standard these days.

 

[crazyscreenwriter]

Ken Kuratagi is a mad genius who maybe gets blamed a little too much for the current State of the 'Station. But mad genius often need people like Howard Stringer looking over their shoulder saying things like, OMG, do you know how much that's going to cost? No we're not doing that! Otherwise mad geniuses have a tendency to well, go mad and run a company into the ground.

There is a nice working balance that is necessary between the creative and the corporate. And it sounds like Kuratagi never would let himself find that balance with his boss, and Stringer just trusted Kuaratgi's judgment a little too much. Also Kuratagi seemed like he thought he wasn't an Engineer, anymore, per se, but instead was some kind of Rock Star. People with Wannabe Rock Star Personalities are never great inside a corporate dynamic.

Ah, well, Sony will figure it out or they won't.

Either way I've found a certain level of respect for Howard Stringer especially since I have had my own interesting run ins with company culture at "Eastern" company. Sounds like a guy going up Niagra falls in a canoe while being pelted by natives with blow guns.

 

[medrew]

I'd love to read a well researched article comparing the rise of Samsung and the decline of Sony.

You can't blame everything on a few visible personalities. For example, the word on the street now that Samsung is way ahead of everyone else regarding FED display tech (carbon nanotubes). It's not like Sony hasn't been researching this tech while Samsung has. To me Sony currently reminds me of a big American automaker that just can't their act together.

There was a recent quote from both Samsung and Sony executives that was quite telling. It arose from their JV and to paraphrase went like so:

Samsung: From Sony we learnt the importance of attention to detail
Sony: Samsung taught us that we need to be quicker in implementing new technologies and not sitting around trying to get every last thing right first.

Any LCD Sony sells, Samsung is in some way a part of that revenue. The LCD panels are manufactured in Korea than shipped to Sony. Several years back Sony signed joint venture with Samsung.

Not entirely true. Sony used to demand that Samsung send all components that they manufactured to their (Sony's) factories to which they would then assemble in-house in places like China and Mexico. Now Samsung's own facilities handle a lot of Sony's production assembly themselves. Although I believe their JV has extended to a co-financed factory being built.
But it's hardly a one-way street in this regard as Samsung benefits from patent sharing with Sony as the latter still tends to hold more expertise in some areas.
Although it still remains that Taiwan is the biggest LCD producer in the world. Korea ranks in at second.

 

[garrickk]

Any LCD Sony sells, Samsung is in some way a part of that revenue. The LCD panels are manufactured in Korea than shipped to Sony. Several years back Sony signed joint venture with Samsung.

Brimstone, I have no idea where you get your LCD panel information. I read EETimes weekly and while I don't remember specifics, there are constantly new articles about companies working on and building new LCD fabrication plants. Sony personally must have several plants outside of Korea, and whenever you read about a new fab, several of the large manufacturers/designers own stakes in them. There is a lot of sharing/selling of tech and fabrication space. Hell, each of them probably see a piece of EVERY panel sold. It's a damn complicated market.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

I don't get it, where is the scary stuff? Honest question.

 

[mckmas8808]

WOW! Makes sense to why all those dumb comments in 2006 were made. And the funny thing is two non-Japanese guys are turning around the company by themselves (ie Stringer and Phil Harrison)

 

[medrew]

Brimstone, I have no idea where you get your LCD panel information. I read EETimes weekly and while I don't remember specifics, there are constantly new articles about companies working on and building new LCD fabrication plants. Sony personally must have several plants outside of Korea, and whenever you read about a new fab, several of the large manufacturers/designers own stakes in them. There is a lot of sharing/selling of tech and fabrication space. Hell, each of them probably see a piece of EVERY panel sold. It's a damn complicated market.

Samsung, LG-Phillips and AUO hold about 60% of the panel supply market for LCDs. While Sharp has recently invested nearly two billion in a new LCD panel factory. And I think Chi Mei holds the next largest stake in the high single digits. Can't really remember.
Samsung and Sony have a JV called S-LCD which produces panels for their sets. Although Samsung has been known to buy some smaller panels off of AUO in the past because of production limitations.
If Sony has any presence with factories then it is unlikely they are producing anything of a large scale. It's a very costly excerise. Sony was caught short as it was getting into the digital tv market. It's the very reasoning for their JV with Samsung. There's too much pressure on them financially at the moment to spend billions of dollars on new factories, let alone hundreds of millions when they could be splitting the costs or buying elsewhere. That and it would take them a while to get up to speed.

It also probably comes down to what type of LCDs your takin

 

[Zaptruder]

There's too much pressure on them financially at the moment to spend billions of dollars on new factories, let alone hundreds of millions when they could be splitting the costs or buying elsewhere.

Let alone's usage is; smaller thing first, larger thing second.

... hundreds of millions of dollars, let alone billions of dollars for new factories...

personal pet peeve of mine.

 

[Masta_Killah]

Wow, good read.

 

[isamu]

I believe Samsung earned something close to 8 billion dollars in profits for the year 2006. Samsung roughly earns 8 times the profits of Sony.


Also Samsung has the highest market capitization of any company outside the US. Samsung is a huge company and they plow enourmous sums of money back into R&D.

Matsushita says hi.

Sony's profits may not be as big Samsung, but it will be irrelevant once they are acquired by Matsushita, which is rumored to happen sometime in 2009. Once Sony is owned by Matsushita, they will become a behemoth of a company, and one that Samsung can only pray to be as big as. Matsushita is the largest electronics manufactuer/producer in the WORLD! And not even Samsung comes close how much profit they take in on a yearly basis(rumored to be in the TRILLIONS).

 

[santouras]

Matsushita says hi.

Sony's profits may not be as big Samsung, but it will be irrelevant once they are acquired by Matsushita, which is rumored to happen sometime in 2009. Once Sony is owned by Matsushita, they will become a behemoth of a company, and one that Samsung can only pray to be as big as. Matsushita is the largest electronics manufactuer/producer in the WORLD! And not even Samsung comes close how much profit they take in on a yearly basis(rumored to be in the TRILLIONS).

Matsushita are really buying Sony(rumoured)?

That would make things interesting given nintendo's relationship with Matushita

 

[leehom]

Matsushita says hi.

Sony's profits may not be as big Samsung, but it will be irrelevant once they are acquired by Matsushita, which is rumored to happen sometime in 2009. Once Sony is owned by Matsushita, they will become a behemoth of a company, and one that Samsung can only pray to be as big as. Matsushita is the largest electronics manufactuer/producer in the WORLD! And not even Samsung comes close how much profit they take in on a yearly basis(rumored to be in the TRILLIONS).

Is there a link to this rumor? I'll be interested in reading it.....

 

[wazoo]

out of his mind???

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BJT/is_6_10/ai_90301750

??

looks to be one of the highest market cap in asia to me

(doh , 2002 figures - but yeah - bereeve)

Looking at this chart

Sony and Samsung are both around 40, Matsushita is nowhere to be seen

 

[NintendosBooger]

Matsushita are really buying Sony(rumoured)?

That would make things interesting given nintendo's relationship with Matushita

What is their relationship with them? I thought it never extended beyond the Q.

 

[ThirdEye]

You can't beat Samsung because it's true that almost all the capitals in South Korea are put in Samsung or Hyndai.

 

[Stinkles]

I don't get it, where is the scary stuff? Honest question.

The fact that the company doesn't communicate at all internally, the fact that Stringer didn't understand anything about technology when he was put in charge of a technology company and the fact that his number one concern is that it's hard to fire people in Japan.

There's loads of scary shit in there, especially if you're a shareholder. What there's not much of, is specifically scary PS3 info - all that price stuff we knew already. I'd just never seen the internal communication about it 'til now.

 

[lynux3]

If Mastushita acquires Sony will they get rid of the brand name Sony? What will become of PlayStation brand?

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

If Mastushita acquires Sony will they get rid of the brand name Sony? What will become of PlayStation brand?

I can't imagine anyone would get rid of the Sony brand. That would be a huge part of the value of buying the company.

Of course, this is in moon world where such a thing could actually happen. I seriously doubt Sony's going to be propping up a "For Sale" sign anytime soon.

 

[Cheesemeister]

If Mastushita acquires Sony will they get rid of the brand name Sony? What will become of PlayStation brand?

It means we'll finally get the M2!

 

[lynux3]

It just doesn't seem likely that Sony would be sold. Isn't Stringer, despite having trouble at Sony, doing a decent job of bringing the company back to its feet?

 

[isamu]

Of course, this is in moon world where such a thing could actually happen. I seriously doubt Sony's going to be propping up a "For Sale" sign anytime soon.

There's gonna be a lot of crow eating from members of this thread in a couple years.

 

[patsu]

The fact that the company doesn't communicate at all internally, the fact that Stringer didn't understand anything about technology when he was put in charge of a technology company and the fact that his number one concern is that it's hard to fire people in Japan.

Bill Gate's security initiative went no where, the original Xbox team did not communicate to the competing WebTV team, Ed Fries and J Allard had their differences in how to run the studios, giving birth to Windows Vista was a turmoil, etc. etc. ...

Why should we be concerned about the day-to-day operation of a 500 pound conglomerate/corporation ?

Lou Gerstner sold Nabisco biscuits before he turned IBM around. At Stringer's level, he may not need detailed understanding of all the businesses (Sony are into many including, content, heavy industry, financial services, ...). He need a team. There has been some management shuffling. We will continue to see more organization changes and reward mechanism as time passes.

There's loads of scary shit in there, especially if you're a shareholder. What there's not much of, is specifically scary PS3 info - all that price stuff we knew already. I'd just never seen the internal communication about it 'til now.

Well... I was a MS shareholder. It wasn't scary but the stock didn't move much too. If Sony is not performing, then some good moves can bring up the stock. Doesn't the OP says Sony stock has improved 44% ?

 

[Brimstone]

Matsushita says hi.

Sony's profits may not be as big Samsung, but it will be irrelevant once they are acquired by Matsushita, which is rumored to happen sometime in 2009. Once Sony is owned by Matsushita, they will become a behemoth of a company, and one that Samsung can only pray to be as big as. Matsushita is the largest electronics manufactuer/producer in the WORLD! And not even Samsung comes close how much profit they take in on a yearly basis(rumored to be in the TRILLIONS).

Matsushita which owns a majority stake in JVC might be considering unloading all its JVC shares.


If Matsushita is worried about JVC investment, they aren't going to buy Sony unless they totally tank and the price is right.



Anyway the Market Cap of Sony is larger than Matsushita. Sony is around 50 billion and Matsushita is at 42 billion. Matsushita might be more of a "pure" electronics company because they don't own movie studios, but when it comes to sheer size Sony is bigger.


So if you combine Sony and Matsushia, there market cap is 92 billion, still less than Samsung which broke over 100 million a while back.

 

[Stinkles]

Bill Gate's security initiative went no where, the original Xbox team did not communicate to the competing WebTV team, Ed Fries and J Allard had their differences in how to run the studios, giving birth to Windows Vista was a turmoil, etc. etc. ...

Good, go post a thread about an MS WSJ story then...?

I was answering his question. With them answers.

 

[patsu]

There has been too many threads/references about MS internals on the Internet and in print... similar to Sony's. No need for another one. Just bring out the good games already.

 

[wazoo]

It just doesn't seem likely that Sony would be sold. Isn't Stringer, despite having trouble at Sony, doing a decent job of bringing the company back to its feet?

ps3 is the only black sheep currently.

 

[TheIkariWarrior]

Well, it seems like Ken won't be a "problem" anymore. I wonder what kind of product PS4 will be.

(not a troll).... hopefully what the PS3 was supposed to be.


http://ps2.ign.com/articles/072/072836p1.html

PS3 Will Have 1,000 Times Performance of PS2
SCEI senior VP says that PlayStation 3 will significantly out-perform PlayStation 2.
by David Zdyrko

November 17, 1999 - According to a news release on AsiaBizTech, Shin-ichi Okamoto said, "We are working to create the PlayStation 3 game machine so that it will have 1,000 times the performance of the PlayStation 2." Okamota, senior vice president of the research and development division of Sony Computer Entertainment, said this when he gave a keynote speech at the "Microcomputer System & Tool Fair '99" held at Tokyo Big Site from Nov. 10-12.

As indicated by the story, SCE surveyed content developers when they were developing the PlayStation 2; the developers said that they would need a performance of 18,000 times that of the PlayStation in order to generate game images in real-time. Sony suggests that the PlayStation 2 is 300 times as powerful as the current PlayStation, falling short of what the content developers had wanted. In regards to this, Okamoto said, "We understand the requirement is half met. We would like to realize the goal in the development of our next version, the PlayStation 3."

 

[TTP]

(not a troll)

Apparently, you do troll even if you dont want to.

 

[isamu]

Matsushita which owns a majority stake in JVC might be considering unloading all its JVC shares.


If Matsushita is worried about JVC investment, they aren't going to buy Sony unless they totally tank and the price is right.



Anyway the Market Cap of Sony is larger than Matsushita. Sony is around 50 billion and Matsushita is at 42 billion. Matsushita might be more of a "pure" electronics company because they don't own movie studios, but when it comes to sheer size Sony is bigger.


So if you combine Sony and Matsushia, there market cap is 92 billion, still less than Samsung which broke over 100 million a while back.

Brimstone, here is where you're wrong. What you need to understand is, several years back Sony signed joint venture with Samsung. Samsung is the largest LCD seller in the world now. Phillips comes in second, then Sharp at third place, then in at fourth place Sony. One advantage Sony has is their brand name is strong so they're able to sell the same technology at a higher price to consumer than Samsung.

Sony did not earn 1.3 billion in profits last quarter. Currently they are projecting a profit 900 million dollars for the year ending March 31st 2007. This includes all divisions such as the movie and electronic groups. I believe Samsung earned something close to 8 billion dollars in profits for the year 2006. Samsung roughly earns 8 times the profits of Sony.

Also Samsung has the highest market capitization of any company outside the US. Samsung is a huge company and they plow enourmous sums of money back into R&D.

 

[LJ11]

Brimstone, stop with the market cap comparisons. Pets.com had a great market cap too at one point.

Note: I'm not comparing Pets.com to any company, just noting how retarded it is to focus on market cap.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I'm a closet Stringer fanboy to be honest. As he points out, he's turned sony from what people were fearing was an hopeless case, into something that's back on the up and up.

Just like Bill Clinton turned the American economy downside-up ? Or maybe he too enjoyed the cumulative efforts put together before he started to get a hand on things (as the article stated, he initially went along with the management plan a laid out before he took charge as Sony's CEO, should I believe that the CURRENT health of Sony is just a Stringer effect ?)

I might be a not so closet Kutaragi fanboy, but while the after-Stringer Sony might be successful if it it becomes the anti-Sony it will just be another company making profits.

 

[krypt0nian]

I'm just like you, I put on my pants one leg at a time. But the difference is, then I make hit records.

OK that was brilliant.

 

[Aisenherz]

Kutaragi has probably crossed from "genius" to "madman" sometime after the PS2 launched. Eesh.

Kutaragi still has a lot of good ideas and visions. Playstation HOME is HIS idea.
And don't forget: He STILL has a lot of POWER and TOO MUCH friends inside the SONY Corp.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Kutaragi still has a lot of good ideas and visions. Playstation HOME is HIS idea.
And don't forget: He STILL has a lot of POWER and TOO MUCH friends inside the SONY Corp.

Ah yes, internal struggles between the new company leader and entrenched management is always a good thing for a company. And I thought you cared about Sony.

 

[P90]

Just like Bill Clinton turned the American economy downside-up ? Or maybe he too enjoyed the cumulative efforts put together before he started to get a hand on things (as the article stated, he initially went along with the management plan a laid out before he took charge as Sony's CEO, should I believe that the CURRENT health of Sony is just a Stringer effect ?)

I might be a not so closet Kutaragi fanboy, but while the after-Stringer Sony might be successful if it it becomes the anti-Sony it will just be another company making profits.

If I interpret you right:

Kutaragi = visionary = Sony
Stringer = bean counter = antiSony

 

[TheIkariWarrior]

Apparently, you do troll even if you dont want to.

look, i was giving an honest opinion, not a "lol oh look the PS3 sux". so if you feel it's a troll, that's your opinion.