Submitted by Sony is a company which is not exactly loved by technologists, despite the fact it has come up with some damn fine technology – with my personal favourite being the MiniDisc format. The problem with Sony has always been that it was stuck in the old ways of doing things (proprietary, closed, DRM), and of course things like the rootkit scandal didn’t help either. It seems like things are about to change, with Sony’s CEO announcing a new direction for the company – focussed on openness.
Sony’s CEO, Howard Stringer, consolidated his position of power earlier this year by also assuming the role of president of the company. In an interview with Nikkei Electronics Asia, Stringer makes some very open mea culpa comments. It’s an interesting interview.
Understanding customers
A quote that really struck me as evidence of common sense has to do with understanding customers. “We have to become a company that can open the window and say, ‘Look, we don’t just design technology because we love technology. We design technology because we understand that our customers are different,'” he said, “We can no longer say that we’re right and our customers are wrong. We can’t build only what we want to build.” Those are pretty interesting words coming out of a Sony CEO.
Gaming of course also makes its appearance. The Playstation 3 simply isn’t doing as well as the competition; I know countless people with XBox 360s and Wiis, but I know only one with a PS3, and he only has one because he received it as a gift when he switched mobile phone contracts. The PS3 is expensive and difficult to program for, which has hindered its adoption as a gaming platform, making it lag behind the Wii and the XBox 360.
Stringer admits that, and hints that understanding customers, and finding what he calls “hidden customers” is very important. “Understanding customers will also help us uncover hidden customers. The Wii from Nintendo Co Ltd of Japan is an excellent example. They didn’t develop any unique technology; they just realized that there was potential demand out there for something different from conventional games, and thought about how to satisfy different demands from different age groups,” he explained, “They attained results that the PS3 hasn’t; namely, generating profit from hardware sales.”
Even though the XBox 360 doesn’t seem to be making Microsoft any profits either, hardware-wise, it does ship far more units than the PS3. When asking around the gaming-inclined part of my group of friends, they all say the same: they’d love to buy a PS3, but they can’t justifiy the price difference between Sony’s gaming rig and the XBox 360. Wii owners are obviously a group apart.
Openness
If there is one word that summarises Sony, it’s “proprietary”. Stringer looks back upon the competition with Apple, and states that had Sony embraced openness, it would’ve beaten the Cupertino company. “Sony hasn’t taken open technology very seriously in the past. Its CONNECT music download service was a failure. It was based on OpenMG, a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology. At the time, we thought we would make more money that way than with open technology, because we could manage the customers and their downloads,” Stringer said, “This approach, however, created a problem: customers couldn’t download music from any Websites except those that contracted with Sony. If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple Inc of the US.”
Openness is not the only area where Sony should’ve taken a different path in its competition with Apple. Sony’s software has always been a total disaster (and I’m being kind here, because I’m in a good mood), and Stringer acknowledges that a good user interface is just as important as a good price and openness.
Moving back to openness, Stringer claims that Sony is transforming from a closed system to an open one. He also believes that it doesn’t matter how many open technologies, content, and services there are to choose from. He tells the tale of a time when he worked at a US TV network, right around the time cable and satellite were introduced. There were only three nationwide US networks back then, and executives of those stated that three was more than enough, that customers couldn’t handle more choice.
“I was about 40 then,” he recalls, “And raised my hand to speak: “That’s not true,” I said. “The customer will always like choice. While it’s better for broadcasters if the world stays the same – that there will always be three networks – it’s going to change.” Four weeks later I was made an unexpected job offer. I was hired as president, replacing the man who had given the speech. If I had kept my mouth shut, I would have remained a journalist. And of course cable TV, satellite broadcasting and the like did develop, just as I’d anticipated.”
Whether or not Sony will actually make the transition it needs to make in order to stay relevant in the content business remains to be seen, but it seems as if Stringer at least has his brain in the right place. I’ve personally never had a bad experience with Sony, and very much like the various Sony products I own, but I do realise that the company needs to make some serious changes in its attitudes towards its customers.
but time will tell if he can actually make it happen. He seems to be sincere–or at least as much as it is possible to judge sincerity from pure text–but whether those under him, Sony’s shareholders, or other companies they may be working with will cooperate and allow this to happen could be an altogether different matter. I hope he can do it, Sony makes some very nice products, and to see them open up would certainly be a breath of fresh air in these times.
Here’s to hoping it will happen.
Sonys hardware business was always hindered by all its content businesses.
I only see a future for Sony if they split Music/Video and hardware. A real split(as in “no more talking to each other”)
Content providers have too many agendas to build great hardware.
Open rootkits!
GPLed rootkits? Me likey!
-Ad
Well, the license is viral, why not the software as well…
Well if it was GPLed, there could be community participation to improve it. You know, more eyes on the code looking for bugs etc. It might even become an integral part of other open source software. Heck, there might even be Linux distro on it.
-Ad
There are already GPL-ed Virus-toolkits, I’m sure they already include rootkits. It’s not viction.
They should start by putting a much requested normal Media center in the PS3 with support of much used formats.
Or open it up so we can install something like Boxee.
But they won’t do that as they DON’T listen to their users.
Would be a good thing for them aswell it would sell much more ps3’s … look at what it did for the old xbox.
That would mean opening the DRM they have on BluRay open to hackers. No way the AACS-LA gonna let that happen.
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I don’t think so. The PS3 is already more open than the competition. It uses standard laptop hard drives that you can upgrade easily, standard USB controllers and storage… They even tell you in the manual how to install an alternative OS on the thing. And despite all of this it doesn’t sell as well as the other more proprietary consoles.
The point is that the people asking for these advanced features are a small minority. The majority of people just wants to play games and/or bluray movies.
…and then hobble it completely by not giving said OS access to the 3D hardware…so…why bother?
They should have made PS3 more upgradeable.
I think I’d rather not have to put more RAM in my PS3 or replace the CPU to play new releases. Game consoles are meant to be a still-target for developers, and physically upgrading one makes it no different to a desktop computer. I expect the PS3 I bought in 2008 to be playing new releases in 2011, thanks. That’s the one advantage consoles have over computers, and to take that away would slaughter console sales.
I’ll believe it when I see an uninhibited Linux running on the PS3.
Lets hope they are more open than apple…
There are some important quotes in the speech covered in poppycock. I’ll try to decipher them:
“Being greedy little weasels, we thought we could milk our customers for all they’re worth.”
“We could not beat Apple because customers did not like getting the shaft.”
Looks like voting with your wallet does count after all.
-Ad
Edited 2009-05-12 13:52 UTC
They can’t do that. If they allow total access to the hardware for Linux nobody will buy SDKs anymore, and any one will be able to publish their games bypassing Sony entirely. The PS3 would become a PC basically. Remember that console manufacturers don’t make much money from the console itself but from each game sold for it.
Yes they can.
That was exactly what they did with the PS2 Linux kit.
They allowed to access all the hardware. The main difference to an official DevKit is the amount of available RAM and direct access to the emotion engine. While on PS2 Linux you have to use a specific graphics API.
So why not do the same for the PS3?
That is exactly what is putting me off the PS3, at least Microsoft is allowing people to develop for the XBox 360 with their XNA kit.
Not exactly. The Sony Linux RTE disc boots the equivalent of a hypervisor to abstract the I/O hardware of the PS2, so the IOP + SPU2 are off-limits to the user except via approved RTE calls (ie, direct access to USB, network, memory cards and sound). However, the EE & GS are available for unrestricted full use.
On the PS3 the hypervisor blocks access to the NVIDIA GPU and abstracts the hardware I/O. Probably what is annoying is the lack of 2D acceleration and YUV -> RGB and advanced 2D graphics modes for video playback which is blocked. The 3D isn’t so much of a problem if you just want media players.
In my opinion Sony has a great brand name, so they could’ve easily become “the second Apple” if only they really listened to consumers, or by being less shy about introducing new paradigms. They seem to have sacrificed future growth potential for immediate investment returns.
The world need something fresh, not just the same rehased old from the past. And that’s why Apple’s in the lead there, because they know.
So I wish Sony good luck in changing that mentality and bringing us some exciting new products!
I saw this guy on CEO Talk (or whatever it is called) and I have to say that he was sharp (He is actually the first westerner to be president of Sony). He seem to know alot of gritty details about the products Sony had and when asked about the problems they are facing his answers was spot on (from a techie perspective). He didnt mention openness per se but listening to his answers it did seem like he was much more willing to listen to the consumers about technical details.
I think I speak for all Walkman owners when I say “God I hope he’s talking about a DRM-free music and video download store, that can be used in Linux!”
Sony is already moving toward openness – you’re not locked into Sony software on the current range of Walkmans, they are just drag ‘n’ drop.
So, am I the only one who at the term Walkman thought of the portable cassette players of yore, and wondered: “DRM-free? But there was never any DRM on tapes* !”
(*): Actually the industry considered a kind of copy protection on tapes for a while. I’m not sure of the specifics, but I believe it used a pilot tone of a special frequency. But as tapes couldn’t (affordably) record frequencies below or above human hearing, the system would have to interfere with the audible music. This was not deemed acceptable, and the idea was shelved.
Oh well, analog copies degraded in quality anyway, especially after a few generations.
That’s precisely the point. The Walkman brand, once one of the strongest brands in the world, is now only associated with twenty five year old cassette players, even though Sony has been releasing music players and phones called Walkman for years now. Sony could have owned the MP3 player market if they’d wanted to. But the conflict of interest in being both a hardware maker and music label destroyed that possibility.
Minidisc was probably one of the best technologies to come out of Sony’s hardware people relative to music and storage (HiMD), but the DRM surrounding it was downright NAGGING.
Too bad. So sad.
Edited 2009-05-12 14:21 UTC
I will forever hate sony for the MiniDisc. I remember its introduction to the US. I saved up my money for an incredibly expensive product, under the hopes the prices would come down. They never did. If they had reached even a 20% price premium over cds, I would have paid. But it was always at least 2-3x more expensive for a player.
Expensive, but awesome hardware that never becomes cheap before obsolescence always draws my ire. Neo Geo, 3D0, Itanium, most smart phones, I’m looking at you.
I still swear by MiniDisc. A few years ago I moved to HiMD, and am still hapy. The quality and ruggedness of the medium as well as the players themselves is unparalleled.
My previous MD portable MD player once got a coca cola bath, and still worked afterwards. I had a plastic bottle of coke in my bag, and for some mysterious reason, it started leaking (didn’t screw the cap on properly, I guess). My MD player bathed in cola for like an hour, and I was preparing for the worst.
The thing continued to function for years after that, until I finally threw it away because I bought that portable HiMD recorder.
It did always retain its sugary smell, though.
lol. The only thing there that was somewhat awesome is 3DO, but it wasn’t considered a game console so it was never really going to be price competitive with the game consoles of the same era.
My first reaction here was “They still make Walkman’s??”.
I realize they’re not your fathers Walkman anymore (that for some inexplicable reason was named “Freestyle” in Sweden) but still, I didn’t know that they still made them.
God damn, you’re making me feel old. I’m only 21, and I had a Walkman as a kid. Right before CDs became popular enough to almost completely replace tapes. My grandfather would always show me a cassette and say “Do you know what that is?”. My reply was “For God’s sake, I’m 20 not 10. I was copying tapes, and copying CDs to tapes when I was 6! As I recall, you still couldn’t work out how to use your cassette player at that point.”
“Walkman” is the brand name they use for their mp3 players and and mp3 playing Sony-Ericsson mobile phones.
I have a VAIO TXN-15PB
-Hardware-wise brilliant piece of technology… light and incredible battery life.
-Software-wise (drivers) an absolute nightmare.
To get it to work under XP (only OS supported) you need to download several dozens executables containing pieces of drivers with no clear labeling what does what, and need to install then a specific order not published by Sony.
I swear never to buy Sony anymore.
i think they just miss the thing.
“open”, is “hey, i’ve got that promising technlogies that everybody find awesome, comme with me to develop around!!!” and not “hey, i’ve got nothing, come help me i’me dying. The only technology i’ve got are crap and/or exepensive”
(i’ve got a md also, and they idea of losting everything is pretty scaring”
Edited 2009-05-12 15:07 UTC
Sony just don’t get it(tm)
1) Creating proprietary for the sake of it: For example, they created a blue tooth alternative that is worse performance, reliability and distance than the open specification but still pushed through with it and attempted to get other people on board. Maybe someone should remind Sony that the only time you develop a proprietary technology is when the open standard doesn’t exist or it royally sucks. Don’t just develop something for the sake of being able to hang a sign around their neck like a proverbial engorged appendage.
2) I too owned a minidisc and I loved it; but why didn’t the make the specification for the device itself and ATRACpro 3 completely open as to allow software vendors to implement software on Windows and other platforms. They had their chance but they decided to lock it down in favour of something the ended up killing an otherwise very good product.
3) BluRay, again, it is a nice idea but it is far too expensive for most consumers, especially when it comes to recording and the availability of blank media; what is worse is the fact that we’re stuck with the same zoning and encryption paranoia that screws over consumers in favour of cow towing to the demands of the media empires. People wonder why I’m sticking to my DVD’s – because atleast they aren’t a rip off.
4) The product quality is incredibly low; anyone who has ever had a Vaio laptop will tell you of the buggy nature of their firmware. Their laptops don’t offer anything above something from Dell, Lenovo or HP. At least with Apple, the prices are higher but there is the dangling carrot that is Mac OS X – Sony on the other hand have nothing, they’re yet another Windows vendor but they’re selling nice but over priced laptops riddled with buggy firmware that in some cases result in worse performance and reliability that el-cheapo laptops from other vendors.
The problems with Sony goes beyond merely not being ‘open’ enough; the problem is they have a CEO who is over the hill who is tantamount to a buggy whip maker in charge of a car company. Couple that with the lack of leadership from management within Sony, the lack of communication the different divisions and more importantly, the lack of a coherent vision which unifies all the divisions together to deliver a unified experience to the customer.
Edited 2009-05-12 15:27 UTC
Don’t forget iLink, they’re version of FireWire that required a completely different plug.
And then MemoryStick/Duo/Pro, instead of SD.
They see something popular and useful, and then develop their own version, that only works with Sony products. :shakeshead:
Sony has some nice hardware, but needs to get out of the “you must buy all accessories from us” mentality.
That’s pretty weak. It is still FireWire and the connector was going to be part of the standard anyway. It isn’t like it is difficult to purchase 4-circuit to 6-circuit cables. The 4-circuit connectors were picked up very quickly by other vendors.
I could say the same thing about USB connectors. It is much more of a mess there. But USB is a mess period.
Also Apple has done the same thing with their new laptops and their new Mini DisplayPort connector. But for laptops and other small devices the Mini DisplayPort connector makes a lot of sense.
Edited 2009-05-12 20:34 UTC
Who said that there was anything wrong with creating new connectors or technology when existing ones fail to meet the requirements? I simply pointed out that Sony created new things where there was no need. To what purpose was their iLink connector when the standard interface would have done the same job? it seems to be yet another piece of technology in search of a purpose other than to gouge customers through the customer thinking they have to have a ‘blessed’ iLink cable from Sony.
The mini-display port was used by Apple for a reason; to reduce the size and thus enable them more flexibility in the design of their computers – that is a relevant reason for creating such a deviation from the status quo. The reality is that none of Sony’s technology fits into that category- all of Sony’s technology amounts to little more than attempts by engineers to create inferior alternatives to the status quo for the sack of getting their ‘name’ out there instead of taking existing standards and adding value onto.
Well nobody really critizized apple for doing the mini display port, but Apple started to pull stunts on the adapters after the macbook air hit the szene.
I will give you a summary:
First macbook air, mini display port + vga + dvi adapter. Enough for most people.
Every model after, either dvi only or no adapter at all and apple charges a load for those adapters!
So Apple is definitely pulling a Sony in this area!
As for Sony, the often also have better solutions to existing standards, problem is nobody buys the sony solutions because it would lock you into Sony!
I think the Sony, pulling Sony stunts has cost them billions the last 20 years, and in the usual Sony fashion it takes decades until they get the message!
After the root-kit incidents (remember, there were two independent root-kits they had, not just one), I have not bought anything Sony. Nor do I plan to do so ever.
Someone should have done serious jail time for that.
Sony should sell off their content business to other companies or jettison it off into its own completely separate company. The two sides of the company are in conflict with one another and they each drag down the other and result in sub-optimal performance for both parts. If the company were split into its perspective parts it would most likely once again become much more innovative without the content business making decisions for the hardware division and hampering their competitive ability. A new Sony Media corporation might also seek out innovate and new ways to profit without being tied to whatever hardware Sony might be pimping at the time.
I was the biggest Sony fan in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, you couldn’t get me to buy a Sony product.
What changed? They became mediocre. It wasn’t that their ideas didn’t matter. It was that they put them out in a fashion, as though their ideas didn’t matter.
Panasonic/National/Matsushita has surpassed them on many levels and Panasonic was the boring, reliable brand.
It’s surprising to me that Sony took Konica-Minolta’s very mediocre line of camera equipment and made something fairly successful out of it.
Sony will have to change their culture, much as Apple did, to win customers. I hope they succeed.
++ That’s basically my beef with Sony as well: they’ve largely ceased providing premium products, but continue to charge premium prices.
I also think that Apple’s prices are similarly-excessive, but most of the products they provide are at least above average. Sony, on the other hand, doesn’t even manage to reach the “half decent” quality level much of the time, let alone “above average.”
I think (?) it’s great that Sony wants to change its tune. But I mean, we’re talking about a company that PAID BILLIONS of dollars to ensure that DRM was put into EVERYTHING. BILLIONS!
Even IF Sony is having a change of heart, what will Sony do to undo the mess that is VERY attributable to their actions ALONE!
I don’t think Sony will kill off Blu-ray (for example).
No sale Sony. You’ve done a LOT of damage. IMHO, the CEO would be WISE to leave Sony, let Sony DIE a miserable and awful death… and start a new company with a new vision.
I have a COM-1 Sony Mylo, first generation. The last update for this device was 2/2007. I got it in 2006. They came out with a COM-2 device a year or so after the 1st gen device, and abandoned the older unit.
It has bugs in it’s IM programs, and is severely hampered by only playing old style PSP MP4 Videos (SP mode). Plus it only does MP3, ATRAC, and WMV for audio. It is based on a Linux OS, but they have it locked up so you can’t modify it.
If the would open this up, it would have a lot of potential, and would ease my hatred for their abandoning ways.
You know I have heard the same comment from friends who say they can’t justify the price difference. It can be a valid argument based on how into gaming you are. For the hardcore enthusiast, its a moot point as buy the time you buy the extras for the 360, your at about a PS3 price. Not to mention the UNGODLY mark up on those items after purchase. Example: My Elites original 120G HD died last week after a move (it wasn’t dropped or anything as I move my gaming stuff in my car as to be extra carefull). When I called GS, they told me the going price for NIB was 160 bucks. I checked amazon, its 130. I went to newegg just to see what the going price for 120G 5400 RPM Lappy drives were going for…yeah…46 bucks!!
In the end, this console war really isn’t so much Sony vs MS…but software vs hardware. MS who has great software but HORRIBLE hardware. Then Sony with great hardware but with lack luster software.
So to some, the PS3 price difference can’t be justified cause of lack of software features. To others, the difference is a small price to pay for BR and what they consider to be way better stability.
When they open up the spec for the PS3 (or PS4) and let such things as Linux and *drool* -AmigaOS4- run and get full access to the GPU, I WILL BUY a unit
Just the other day I got a promo by snail mail from Sony (I bought a TV ones) to get me to try their new DRM-device, euh, Blue-Ray device. No way ofcourse. It even said: VIP Treatment, DRM doesn’t make me feel like a VIP at all, it does makes me feel used though.
At a time when mp3 players were just getting started MiniDiscs offered far superior sound quality and the hardware was top notch. I’ve owned two players and the only thing that forced me to switch to a standard mp3 player was the fact that it wasn’t open and I would be forced to use Windows to interface with it.
I can’t comment on computers, but all the Sony gear I’ve sold has been reliable, and most of the time it’s been significantly better than competing products. Exception: The V series LCDs. Reliable, but disappointing picture quality.
My Walkman is an excellent player with fewer reliability issues than any iPod I’ve used; and as the local “computer guru” I always have people asking me to make their iPods and PCs work again.
I bought a handycam with ‘up to n hours recording time’ written prominently on the box. I expected n to be some possible length of time if you use it in a low power mode such as by turning off the LCD, and it was a significant factor in my purchasing decision. It turned out that the included battery only gave 1/6th of that recording time. The only way I could have got n hours was to buy an accessory battery costing 75% of the price of the handycam. Cheaper OEM batteries wouln’t work as the camera checked for microchipped Sony batteries.
That wasn’t a lack of openness on Sony’s part. That was just being a bastard manufacturer playing on consumers’ assumptions/naivity/lack-of-research. I don’t like being treated with contempt, so Sony no longer counts in my purchasing decisions.
Although I never owned a Playstation (PC gamer all the way) I did always buy everything I could from Sony (except a computer, I knew better even then) up until about 9 years ago.
After the rootkit fiasco I boycotted Sony. Including anything from their media and entertainment divisions as well.
Since then I have actually purchased one product from Sony, a pair of headphones because I needed them and there was nothing else available. I may have seen a movie or two at the cinema that they produced or distributed, but it would have been unintentional.
Even though I still won’t buy DVDs or CDs from them probably, unless they fight MPAA/RIAA, which I don’t see happening, I may reconsider buying their products regularly again if they were to change their long history of proprietary hardware and software.
I’m pretty much sticking with Samsung until then, their industrial design and LCDs are amazing. The lesser evil. Besides they build military robots, and that’s pretty cool.
it’s about time. but probably too late. their new mp3 walkman still requires you to use software to load your mp3’s on it. i don’t know why they can’t just let you drag and drop right on it.
I had a Walkman Bean for a day. Requiring me to transcode my mp3s to another lossy format (atrac) to load them onto the Bean is just dumb. I returned it and got a Samsung, with UMS instead of MTP or Atrac or any other crap.