Canon vs. Sony vs. Panasonic R&D

[A1000]

http://www.canon.com/ir/results/2007/rslt2007e.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financi ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://panasonic.net/ir/annual/2008/pdf ... 2008_e.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

R&D Expendatures
Sony 520 bil. Yen
Canon 368 bil Yen
Panasonic 554 bil Yen

[fastson]

Hey A1000, what is your take on the Times article regarding Sony and cost cutting? The Times mention something about slaying the sacred cow.

You can read it here: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 446963.ece" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I find it difficult to see it affected the imaging department of Sony.. It is after all one of the main businesses, and even though Sony probably has bought some of the dSLR market via selling the A200-A350 at a lower price, I cant see them pulling out after achieving taking a 12% market share.

But what's your take on it?

[A1000]

Stringer is an idi*t, an oportunist, who got ahead at CBS by knowing where to kiss up. I think that it was Dan Rather, who indirectly implied some of these things. Stringer is not managing Sony right, just as he was not managing right the US portion of the business in the past, but he is very well connected and it helps. He is also a lot better than Idei, the past Sony top man before him. Stringer does not understand marketing, electronics, manufacturing. He is a newsman, but he knows how to get the right people to help him, in the US, Europe, etc., where the Japanese do not understand the local cultures.

Stringer will eventually end up selling Sony to Mik*osoft, or something like that.

See how terible job is Sony doing in marketing on the net. Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Red .. all these get a lot better support from the forum owners than does Sony, add the noise issues with the DSLR cameras, etc.

Sony could not even market the 900 by comparing it, in combination with CZ, to MF, which should have been done.

See what the DP Review n*rds said about the 900 - that Sony should be selling it at $2K. Wait how they will praise 5D Mk2

Sony will not leave DSLR business, will continue to be imaging sensor leader, but will sell most of its CMOS manufacturing, because CMOS fabrication can be farmed out.

Stringer needs to show that he can manage the company and the DSLR's is where he can do so; it is his baby, so he will support it.

Sony will become just another electronics company. It's glory died when its fonder Akio Morita sufferd a stroke. He caused an uproar in Washington, after he coauthored a book in Japan, where he promoted Japan's independence from the US.

Sony was unable to move to software development on large scale; it has not made any signifivant acquisitions in this area.

There is a lot more to it. The man before Stringer, Idei, was a total idiot.

Stringer has not disassocite Sony from the film and record divisions and what worse, opened a gay and transgender record label within the record division. Sony movies are often low life, often low quality, and destroy Sony's image. Disney makes even worse films, but never under Disney labels. Only an idiot would make films that are anticatholic, put Sony label on it, and then brag that the movie made great profits. That is Stringer - and that is typical for American managers - short term profits and long term losses. Stringer is an old man that is going blind, so his days at Sony are numbered anyway. Let's see how much damage he'll do before he leaves.

Stringer is responsible for Blu-Ray to take so long to developed, because he needed to kiss up to all the studios, because Sony did not disassociate itself from its own studios. Sony lost couple years because of that and one of the outcomes was the Blu-Ray HD-DVD war.

When Sony bougt porton of MGM, Columbia was to distribute MGM films. MGM soon switched distributors, because Sony name on Columbia label degraded image of the movies. Japanese electronics and low life American content just don't mix.

I would not worry at all about cameras. Sony has an edge over its competitors when it comes to merging the video and still functions, and that is the future of DSLR's.

Sony failed to communicate to the consumers that they are a top imaging company, failed to associate their DSLR's with their knowlege in top pro video cameras, failed to get 33% of Tamron, which in Japan means majority ownership. Sony needs stronger optical and software teams!

Idei and Springer killed the Aiwa brand, Stringer killed Qualia. He is a total idiot when it comes to marketing. Plus he makes sure that he surrounds himself with people who are kissing up to him. He fired Ken Katagari, the top Sony engineer, who headed the Playstation projects and was mislead by the management in PS3 development. Katagari considered Idei to be an idiot and probably had the same opinion of Stringer.

Stringer would like to bring American corporate culture to Sony. With that would naturally go the Japanese corporate integrity and honesty.

[Javelin]

If they let the bean counters take over like it seems they want to do here in that article they will become another RCA and in the end be little better than gold star. whenever the accountant types are excited about something it makes me worry.

[fastson]

That was a long reply..

I agree with alot of what you said. But Stringer did help Sony out by making them turn profit again, they were in a pretty bad shape for a while.
Kill off CMOS fabbing since it can be outsourced you say, yeah thats an likley candidate. They would still pour money into the R&D, anything else would be retarded.

I dont think they will leave dSLRs either, its a very expansive market and Sony wants a cake of it. After all they must be proud of the Cybershot and Handycam market, as well as the Professional video market, so naturally they want to have a high profile amongst dSLRs.

I wonder what they could cut off though if it comes to that? Music? VAIO (I have one and its a very nice computer, so I hope they keep it).. Batteries? That caused them some trouble.

I remember Ken Kutaragi, a total genious. He took some blame for the PlayStation 3 it seems, but he is a brilliant genious. He made Sony team up with Samsung to manufacture LCD displays, that has been very profitable for Sony. Of couse he designed the sound processor in the Nintendo 16-bit machine almost all by himself and put all the Playstations together.

I'm from Sweden so naturally we get to read about IKEA and its founder, Ingvar Kamprad. I wish more corporate leaders would be like him. He does not care about short term earnings, if he wants to invest in something he can wait 5-6-7-10 years before results are shown. This is what he says anyway and that is why IKEA is not a joint-stock company, if the capitalists get to rule they only are about the next quarter profits. If the next quarter profits arent better than the last quarter they get upset.

The company I work for was bought by capitalists investors a few years ago, after that almost all R&D at the company was shut down and from that moment it was profit profit profit. If something was to be developed the customer had to pay for it. Recently the capitalists sold the company and the new owners is an italian tech company, naturally they understand the market in which we operate so they want to spend a good chunk of the budget for R&D so the company can develop and stay competeive. So the owners and leaders make a huge difference.

[A1000]

You are so right. The CEOs and the politicians just care about short term results. That is why world is so f*cked up. You should work in an American corporation. It's nothing but politics. You can take a course here on how to promote an invention in an American corporation without your boss stealing yopur idea and firing you. When Germans or Japanese acquire an American company, they can't believe how bad the engineers are generally. The engineering department too is more about politics than engineering. Only the ones who know best where and how to kiss up, and keep on doing it, move up the corporate ladder. See who is the current US president and tell me, would any nation in Europe vote for something like that?


Will Stringer OEM Sakar and Samyang lenses? http://www.sakar.com/press.aspx#20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Here are parts of this news release:

Sakar Acquires Vivitar Brand, Expanding Footprint in Camera Business 8/21/2008

Consumer electronics manufacturer Sakar International today announced the acquisition of the Vivitar worldwide brand name

Sakar is a market leader in digital cameras

The company’s current camera products retail from $20 to $100.

Sakar currently holds licenses for major brand franchises including Crayola, Hello Kitty, Star Wars, Leap Frog, Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Jeep, Made for iPod and For Dummies.

Vivitar was founded in 1938 and grew to become a leading manufacturer of both digital and film cameras

Sakar's Crayola line