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One of Sony¶s greatest strengths is their ability to produce innovative, quality products. Sony¶s web page

states ³Sony innovations have become part of mainstream culture, including: the first magnetic tape and

tape recorder in 1950; the transistor radio in 1955; the world¶s first all-transistor TV set in 1960; the world¶s

first color video cassette recorder in 1971; the Walkman personal stereo in 1979; the Compact Disc (CD) in

1982; the first 8mm camcorder in 1985; the Minidisk (MD) player in 1992; the PlayStation game system in

1995; Digital Mavica camera in 1997; Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) player in 1998; and the Network Walkman

digital music player in 1999´ (Sony.com/en/corporate).

PC World published The 20 Most Innovative Products for the Year 2006. Sony¶s Reader was listed as number

six and Sony¶s PlayStation was listed as number sixteen. Sony Corporation has managed to be competitive

and stay a powerful organization by learning from past failures. Sony states the following: ³Sony has learnt

much from previous unsuccessful products. The Sony MSX home computer, for example, did not attain a

satisfactory level of success. But it did teach Sony development engineers valuable know-how that would be

applied in later years. In effect, these engineers became living resources, representing latent power within

Sony that did not exist in other AV companies´ (Sony.net).

Another strength of Sony is their ability to be successful in several different markets. They have made an

impact in the video game market, the PC market, and especially the television market and there are still

numerous others.

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Sony¶s biggest and most recent weakness is their lack of innovation with PS3. Sony focused on digital

technology when building the PS3 and it has the ability to export video in high-definition. But this

technology can only be viewed on a high definition TV so a lot of people will not even be able to see the full

potential it has to offer. Another downfall to the PS3 is the price, which Sony has recently lowered by $100.

Yet the weakness of the PS3 is even deeper when considering the range of video game selections. The

majority of games available are all first-person shooter games, which appeal to a particular market. There

are few games that appeal to a different section of video gamers. Sony executives made it clear that they
know they need to do more than lower prices to woo consumers back to its flagging video game brand.




 

Sony seeks a lot of opportunities that utilize their strengths of innovation. At Sony Ericsson, design is about

more than just a good looking product: it is integrated into every step of the process ± intelligent features,

user-friendly applications, innovative materials and, of course, attractive visual appearance. Design is the

essential differentiator when comparing mobile communications products.

Sony's Reader, a device the consumer-electronics giant hopes is an early draft of how the world will read

books in the future, is another innovation that Sony is using as an opportunity to enter a new market. The

downloaded books generally cost 20 to 30 percent less than their dead-tree counterparts, which is also

setting a standard on what is expected in regards to new products that encourage environmentally friendly

devices.

One of the other CSL projects most likely to succeed was a nifty little piece of graphics software for cell

phones by Ivan Poupyrev. It might not sound like much, but the ability to draw realistic icons and avatars

directly on a standard (non-touchscreen) phone is sure to add appeal to users of mobile social-networking

sites.

Although there was far too much on display today to cover in depth here, there was a clear emphasis on

what many predict will be the boom technology of the next few years ± social networking in all its forms.


 

A common threat facing any company in sales is competition. Sony¶s Vaio is its newest innovation in

notebook computers. The various models range in price from $845 - $2300. However, Dell has a great

reputation when it comes to laptops similar to the Vaio and has a broader range of notebooks to choose

from, not to mention that Dell has also been a top seller when it comes to desktop computers. Additionally,

the cost of a Dell notebook computer seems to have a lower price tag than many of Sony¶s Vaio models.

Sony¶s top competitors in the gaming industry are Nintendo and Microsoft. The PlayStation 3 sales have
fallen behind recently. In 2007, 82,000 PS3s have sold and 360,000 Nintendo Wiis.

In the LCD television market, Sony excels but still faces some strong competition, including Samsung,

Sharp, Panasonic and more. Many of these same brands appear in the DVD player market that Sony has to

compete with.

Competition isn't the only threat Sony is facing. Sony most recently had to make a public apology

concerning the use of a backdrop in a violent video game, "Resistance: Fall of Man." Sony used the

Manchester Cathedral in northwest England in this video game, which features a bloody gun battle scene

between American soldiers and aliens. Sony made a formal, public apology on July 6, 2007. However, when

asked to withdraw the game or make donations to community groups, they have refused.

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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=25104

http://reviews.cnet.com/4511-5_7-4.html?qt=delldhsnotebookseditorsratingtab&do=1&ds=1

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&l

angId=-1&categoryId=16154&parentCategoryId=16154&XID=O:sony%20vaio:dg_vinb_gglsrch

http://au.christiantoday.com/article/sony-apologizes-for-games-bloody-church-shootout-refuses-

demands/2929.htm

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/2007/08/01/sony-games-innovation-lead-cz_cc_0802christensen.html

http://news.sel.sony.com/en/corporate_information/sony_brand

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128176-page,6-

c,electronics/article.htmlhttp://www.sony.com/SCA/index.shtml

http://www.sony.com/SCA/index.shtml
http://www.sony.net/Fun/SH/1-37/h2.html

Posted by Team Sonyat 8:48 AM