This one is my post from another thread (MP3s, y-day) which is strangely relevant...:
a bit on the tangent of this thread, but i hope somebody from Sony will read this my post:
Sony are in deep trouble, and it is not only cos the company became unweildy and inefficient (how can they justify having at least 10 various headphones?). this was always the case with Japanese giants.
The problem is that will be squeezed from two sides with the direction of home entertainment:
in software, Microsoft has the head (windows, Media Centre, etc) and Apple has the heart (Mac and iAll). It was my experience that Sony tended to bungle software, see the cursed SonicStage, etc.
In hardware, all the hardware makers are being relegated to positions of commodity shifters as one improvement follows the other, and the field is very dense with Koreans and Taiwanese pushing the Japanese out on quantity, if not quality.
Now, finally after two decades of promises, the convergence b/w home entertainment, communication and computer is here. Gates' Media Centre, the Tablet PC etc have not been succesful at first stab but there's little doubt that eventually, a computer will rule the home etnertainment hub with a specilaized UI.
When this happens, hardware companies will be fully and finally relegated almost to OEM status of peripherals producers, while MSFT and perhaps AAPL will be sitting pretty and collecting the rent of their OS monopoly. Sony and other today's consumer electronics favourites will be simply builders of tv monitors, disc drives (Blu-ray anyone?), audio amplifiers and perhaps decoder boxes... Even gaming will not save them cos MSFT's PC will be able to replace them clean and make it easier to play on line. Perhaps someone will start selling kits for a monster PC for the home that will sit in the utility room and spider the entertainment centre(s), terminals for Dad's work from home, kids' homework and Mum's emails, streaming audio and channeling printers and internets?
The only way to avert this for the hardware crowd, is to have either a proprietary OS (but this is almost insurmountable, esp with Sony's record in software) OR use non MSFT or AAPL OS - the Linux. Now i am not an expert on OS but i think that this is possible and the only chance for Sony and other Japanese companies, also Philips to stay in the game.
Note what the Dark Side is doing with the 360 - the PS3 may be more powerful and have better games (and Blu-ray - who cares when soon all will be stored off-site), but 360 will be the hub for the house, enabling photo viewing, music streaming, internet browsing, email etc - basically, an entertainment PC. Sony mumbled about these functions in the PS3 but i sense a big miss here coming.
So there you have it. Ability to get a completely new product every six months (the HDs) but inability to have a killer one, and inability to see the direction of the industry.
Sad for shorters of AAPL like me...