uh oh!  just wanted to pass the info on.  Makes me wonder how this’ll all play out.  i love sony designs, but their software techs or sony lawyers really need to be tweaked. 

wsj… “The review reflects concern that Sony will be unable “to regain the strong profit and cash flow generation patterns seen in its past,” Moody’s said in a statement, adding that the survey could lead to a downgrade of the single-A1 ratings of Sony and its subsidiaries. That is four rungs below the top rating, triple-A.”

:shock:

Doesn’t surprise me at all. The Playstation is their only really successful and profitable consumer line at this point. This could be a good thing that scares the shit out of the higher-ups into rethinking the company. This means jettisoning what’s now known as Sony Music and Sony Pictures. Profits will be falling for the forseeable future at record labels (most record company execs don’t even understand their own industry anymore). Sony Pictures is probably better off, but Sonys content holdings are seriously holding back their digital media offerings. Having Andy Lack dictate what a digital player can and can’t do is sort of like having Marie Antoinette manage a soup kitchen. Secondly, Sony needs to reign in all of those departments working on similar projects and start coordinating. Why is there a Vaio Pocket and 4 completely different products named Network Walkman, including the Bean? And while we’re at it, what’s with the geeky, alphanumeric names they keep giving these things? I’ll remember “iPod nano” and “Rio Karma” a hell of a lot better than “NW-HD5” and “NW-E507”.

Sadly, Apple, Samsung, smaller record labels and other companies who are quicker on their feet will continue to eat Sony’s lunch. By the time Sony realizes out how hungry they are, they’ll need to figure out which Chinese company they will get the best offer from.

Excellent point!

VAIO Pocket was actually a half-decent name. At least it was something that one could remember. Network Walkman is an ok name but it’s far too long. I actually like that they started calling that new model “Walkman”. That’s a start but they’re going to have to come up with some clever names for distinct model genres they’re going to release.

I don’t see them going away from the Walkman name since it still has some limited brand identity left.

What would some interesting names be?

Walkman - main product line (i.e. the purple one)
Walkman Capsule
Walkman DUO
Walkman Clip
And knowing Sony’s inclination for letter series…
Walkman Type S
Walkman Type R

I think words like zen, nano, micro, and mini are all taken already.

I am almost sure Sony owns the rights to Spiderman…that’s one picture that essentially is as good as printing money.

Erik

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]
Walkman - main product line (i.e. the purple one)
Walkman Capsule
Walkman DUO
Walkman Clip
And knowing Sony’s inclination for letter series…
Walkman Type S
Walkman Type R

I think words like zen, nano, micro, and mini are all taken already.

please no TYPE LETTERS… haha… that’s playing on the over-used JDM mentality.

i would be interested if they designed one for the different uses

walkman… big capacity, probably hd
sprinter… durable, flash…
liqwid walkman…. for the underwater swimmer.. and while they’re at, it design a headphone that’s waterproof. 

i need DUH names.  grandma already has a hard enough time trying to figure out what what RZ-NH10 means.

Their credit rating will do absolutely nothing to/for their corporate strategy.  Time and time again, company’s just don’t get the point.

If they did rethink their corporate strategy, i think many of you would be sad to know that the first product line they’ll be jettisoning would be their computing products (think IBM, Compaq).

The sad reality of it is that computers don’t make company’s money.  It is expensive to maintain and set up a strong product line, you don’t make crap selling them, and the support costs are extremely high.

While we’ll all agree the VAIO line are nice, they are way overpriced…and only a small niche (us) continue to consume them.  Meanwhile, the acer’s and avaratec’s of the world are moving in on the sleek design cool factor.  Once they generate enough brand name recognition….these forums may become the Avaratec Piece of Crap World.

[quote author=“tifosiv122”]I am almost sure Sony owns the rights to Spiderman…that’s one picture that essentially is as good as printing money.

One film doesn’t make a label/studio. The company I work for has basically two big artists in the “printing money” category, a few bands that can hold their own in niches and a whole bunch that end up losing money because of the tremendous amounts of money that end up going into making the product itself and the marketing costs. That’s pretty normal. I’ve heard it said that only 1/10 of the product you put out there makes money, and it subsidizes the other 90%. One record was never put out that cost us well over $100k to make. It was decided that it wouldn’t do what we wanted in the market and would just end up being a money hole. We ate the $100k, shelved the record and dropped the band. (The label still owns the record, so the band can’t shop it elsewhere.) Again, this is distressingly normal.

[quote author=“gotolam”]Their credit rating will do absolutely nothing to/for their corporate strategy.  Time and time again, company’s just don’t get the point.

If they did rethink their corporate strategy, i think many of you would be sad to know that the first product line they’ll be jettisoning would be their computing products (think IBM, Compaq).

The sad reality of it is that computers don’t make company’s money.  It is expensive to maintain and set up a strong product line, you don’t make crap selling them, and the support costs are extremely high.

While we’ll all agree the VAIO line are nice, they are way overpriced…and only a small niche (us) continue to consume them.  Meanwhile, the acer’s and avaratec’s of the world are moving in on the sleek design cool factor.  Once they generate enough brand name recognition….these forums may become the Avaratec Piece of Crap World.

i’m not sure if i agree with that, the people that follow sony are like those that follow a powerbook.  i never believed vaios were aimed at the average joe.  it’s styling was always held to be pretty high.  atleast that’s the reason I paid a premium to get a TR.  as with any company, they compensate tech support with the high warrenty costs.

it is possible that sony is just trying to evolve to the times and that just costs in the short run. nO?

More bad news for Sony .

[quote author=“vaio-freak”]If Sony reconsidered its strategy and priorities, it will take awhile to become profitable and #1 again. Still possible, not too late.

And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Seriously, Sony’s become ossified. They still think the name Walkman means something. Go to Google and type in Walkman. Half the images are of what most people associate with “Walkman”: the classic tape player. So 80’s. Even the CD version was called the Discman. The one business unit they have that is making real money is their games unit. Spin that off, and what do they have? A studio that can’t make money unless a Spider-Man flick comes out. A music unit that couldn’t find its market if it bit it in the ass (maybe if it looked at the people it was suing…). An A/V unit that was an also-ran with a few proprietary-but-cool technologies. A PC unit that wanted to be Apple in the worst way but hired Rube Goldberg as the head software architect. Chips and memory units that can’t compete with Serious Samsung. Call me a cynic, but Sony will be owned by someone else within 10 years.

I don’t know if Sony will ever be #1 but they certainly can be profitable. It’s not hard when they’re already sucking as bad as it is.

They just got too big for their own good and they let it be stagnant for way too long. I think they should spin off some of their companies and let them be autonomous…especially the divisions that are actually creating really neat stuff. Basically all the groups need to be separated from the entertainment arm and their DRM-craziness.  :wink:

And yeah, Walkman is more or less dead. They need to find something new to market which doesn’t have a tarnished name already. Maybe they can bring back CLIE as the new media device. That’s shorter and catchier than NETWORK WALKMAM.

Suffixes like “i”, “net”, and “e” are all old school now…they’re so 2000. Heck, the current craze is now “HD”. “HD” is the new “i” and is likely to be around until the end of the decade when we’ll all allegedly have HD.