Sony, what have you done for me lately? I mean besides selling products that break (my friends hella-expensive receiver, my hella-expensive CD changer, etc. etc.)? Sony’s been off buying media companies (MGM was the latest), while falling asleep at their core consumer electronics wheel.

MP3 players? Apple, you take that market.
Plasma/LCD TVs? I guess we should get into that market!
Flash Memory? Here, have some proprietary, expensive, low-storage (compared to other market solutions), late-to-market MemoryShit.
Cellphones? Hum.. we fucked this up so badly, we had to dilute our brand with Ericsson’s. OK, they have been making some good "Sony Ericsson" phones recently, but how could they possibly have screwed up such an important market up to begin with?

This is how you ruin a brand. This is how you become a Harvard B-School case study on how not to manage a company. But no worries… plenty of companies would love to become the next Sony (OK, I do admit that Sony’s doing the best job of trying to create some cool desktop computers and notebooks as well as some interesting MemoryShit-plagued digital cameras).

Samsung is one of those companies wanting to be the next Sony. Already their market cap ($62 billion or so) has surpassed Sony, while their brand is closing in on Sony. As described in a recent Economist Article (you gotta play to pay), Samsung’s brand (yes, another Economist article you gotta pay for) is device driven, not overall brand driven. By this they mean that when a consumer thinks of a purchasing a cellphone for example, they don’t think "Samsung," but if they see a cool Samsung device, they’ll probably be comfortable with the brand. So comfortable that in 2004, Samsung became the number two cellphone manufacturer behind Nokia with Motorola now third. A little more "cool" in the brand… you Fins watch out.

Hey Sony, check out the new MacMini. Now Steve’s gunning for you too. Oh, and that cash-cow know as the PlayStation… if Microsoft beats you to market with their next-generation game console… I guess there are always more media companies to buy.

Update: 2005_01_21
A couple of articles in the New York Times. The first:

TOKYO, Jan. 20 - The Sony Corporation warned on Thursday that sales and operating profit would probably fall short of its forecasts because of rapidly declining prices for DVD recorders and video cameras, as well as stiff competition from Apple’s popular iPod.

And this with a golden master-of-the-obvious statement:

TOKYO (AP) –  Sony

missed out on potential sales from MP3 players and other gadgets
because it was overly proprietary about music and entertainment
content, the head of Sony Corp.’s video-game unit acknowledged Thursday.