Category: Sony

Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European Showing

Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European ShowingI had a Sony W800 Walkman Phone in my hands for the first time today at the Sony Media Experience in Bordeaux. There’s already been a terrific buzz about this camera and it was great to get my hands on the thing during what Sony claims was its first European outing.

First impressions – good. Its weight is just right, light enough to make it carriable but sufficiently weighty to make it of substance.

Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European ShowingThe central music button is the focus of the handset and, not surprisingly, pressing it takes you straight to your music selection.

Once tracks have been selected, there are separate buttons on either side of the handset. The button on the left is play/pause and the right control volume. Again, without having to dive into the menus of the phone. A smart move.

Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European ShowingThe software comes with the handset will take music CDs straight from the player on your machine to handset, without intervention.

It follows on from other Sony camera phones, in that taking photos is easy. Simply sliding the switch at the rear of the machine, takes the horizontally-held phone straight to camera mode, again without having to devle into menus.

The W800 should retail for €500 (US$644/£341) pre-operator’s discounts.

Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European Showing
Single button to access music

Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European Showing
Volume controls

Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European Showing
Headphones attach at the bottom

NW-HD5: Sony Launches 20GB Network WALKMAN Against iPod

Sony Launches NW-HD5 20GB Network WALKMANiPod killers, eh? You can barely get out of bed without some hyperbolic company boldly giving their new MP3 player the big one, only to discover that it’s proved as popular as a lager lout on a teatotallers daytrip.

This time, however, it looks like the boffins at Sony could have pulled something special out of the bag.

The highly pocketable Sony NW-HD5 is a 20 Gigabyte hard disk player that is both smaller and lighter than its equivalent iPod, weighing in at a lithe 125g.

The machine supports Sony’s ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus compression formats, Windows Media Audio, WAV files and the vital MP3 format.

Sony Launches NW-HD5 20GB Network WALKMANWhen it comes to battery life, the Sony has taken the iPod around the back of the bike sheds and given it a good thumping.

The Sony’s far superior battery life serves up a mighty thirty hours of MP3 playback, (40 hours using Sony’s proprietary ATRAC3Plus format at 48kbps), kicking sand dunes in the face of the equivalent iPod’s weedy 12 hours.

Even better, Sony’s battery is replaceable too, with Sony promising that spares will be available from High street stores – a far cry from iPod owners having to shell out big bucks to get Apple to exchange their worn out power packs.

“We’re raising the stakes again in the digital music player market,” purred a delighted Gregory Kukolj, General Manager for Personal Audio Europe. “The stunning new ‘follow turn’ feature, 40 hours battery life, incredibly compact design, and to top it off, very affordable pricing, make the new Network WALKMAN an irresistible proposition for users who seek a quality digital music player.”

We’re yet to rub up and get intimate with the Sony NW-HD5 but it appears to be an attractive looking affair, available in silver, red and (none more) black.

Sony Launches NW-HD5 20GB Network WALKMANUnlike previous Sony models, the NW-HD5 is based around a portrait design where the seven line, 1.5-inch backlit LCD sits above the controls. In a neat twist, the new ‘Follow Turn Display’ feature automatically orients the interface screen horizontally or vertically depending on which way the player is held.

The player comes bundled with SonicStage 3.1 music management software for converting and managing music from CDs in both ATRAC3plus and MP3 formats. The software also offers access to Sony’s iTunes-challenging “CONNECT” online catalogue of more than 600,000 tracks and albums.

The player goes on sale in May for £200 (US$375/€292) (£10 [US$19/€14] less than its equivalent iPod), with a 30 Gigabyte version in silver following the month after.

Sony UK

MP3 Player Sales Set To Nearly Quadruple By 2009

MP3 Player Sales Set To Nearly Quadruple By 2009Shipments of MP3 players soared by an enormous 116% in 2004, as hundreds of wallet-tempting products arrived in response to the phenomenal success of Apple iPod player, according to a survey by Market Intelligence firm, iSuppli.

Propelled by the soaring growth in demand for hard disk drive (HDD)-based products, iSuppli predicts shipments of MP3 players will nearly quadruple from 2004 to 2009.

The company forecasts that total MP3 player shipments will expand to 132 million units in 2009, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.1% from 36.8 million in 2004.

Although growth in 2005 is expected to slow from the frenzied buying levels of 2004, the MP3 market will continue to expand at a rapid rate, with iSuppli predicting unit shipments of MP3s rising to 57.7 million in 2005, up 57% from 36.8 million in 2004.

The super, soaraway success of the iPod echoed the public’s love affair with HDD-based MP3 players, with competitors moving quickly to offer products that aped the iPod’s use of a 1.8-inch HDD.

MP3 Player Sales Set To Nearly Quadruple By 2009The iSuppli report also predicts that HDD-based MP3 player shipments will grow by a CAGR of 41.8% from 2004 to 2009, as compared to 22.9% for flash-based players.

Shipments are expected to 56.2 million units in 2009, up from 9.8 million in 2004, with HDD-based products accounting for nearly half of all MP3 shipments, at 42.6% in 2009 (up from only 26.6% in 2004).

The overall small form-factor HDD market had revenues of US$2.2 billion in 2004 and likely will rise to US$5.7 billion in 2008, generating a CAGR of more than 27 % over this period, iSuppli predicts.

The first vendor to ship 1.8-inch HDDs was Toshiba. Hitachi Global Storage Technology also has started shipping these drives and Western Digital Corp. (WDC) is expected to begin shipping them later in the year.

The research group said electronics producers stood to benefit from consumers’ willingness to pay more for “waaaaaay cool” products, something that Apple traditionally excels at and something that Sony clearly has in mind with its funky new line-up of Walkmans.

“Initially, (Apple’s) iPod was quite expensive, but the company reduced prices when the competition arrived. It also has aggressively introduced many generations of products in quick succession over the past four years,” iSuppli said.

But iSuppli warned companies not to try to squeeze too many features into their products: “The so-called ‘Swiss Army Knife’ approach has not succeeded in the MP3 market. Simple, elegant products that perform a few functions with easy-to-use interfaces have sold well in the marketplace, while the do-everything approach has failed.”

So, there goes my idea for a MP3 playing toaster then.

iSuppli

Apple Shares Fall As Sony And Napster Bite

Apple Shares Fall As Sony And Napster BiteApple Computer shares dropped Tuesday as Sony relaunched its famous Walkman line amongst concerns that increased competition from Napster might impact its dominance of online music and portable players.

The soaraway success of the iPod music player has transformed Apple’s balance sheet and its stock price, with the company shining as one of the best performers in the Nasdaq technology index over the past year.

But some industry pundits are predicting that Apple is being damaged by serious competition from a new generation of smaller, sleeker and cheaper MP3 players from the likes of Sony, Rio and Creative and a host of online music services led by Napster.

Shares of Apple have dropped 8.5 percent since the announcement of the stock split on 11 February, and have fallen some 6 percent this week alone.

“Competition concerns are certainly going to influence how this stock trades,” said Warren West, principal at Philadelphia-based GreenTree Brokerage Services, which executes trades for institutional investors such as asset managers and hedge funds. “Investors in general have enjoyed the stock moves, there’s a lot of money that has been made, and people are going to start taking profits _ especially after the split.”

Apple Shares Fall As Sony And Napster BiteOver the last twelve months, Apple’s share price has gone from US$23 (€17/£12) to an all-time high of US$81.99 (€61/£42) just before the split was announced.

Investors must now decide if the company’s share price can maintain its strength in the face of a market getting becoming increasingly crowded with rival products.

Sony are aggressively targeting the iPod with their Walkman line of digital music players, hoping to woo customers with lightweight and compact flash memory players instead of bulkier, hard drive-based units.

In fact, many of the new iPod alternatives aren’t trying to compete with Apple’s player at the high end but are focussing on consumers who are choosing between cheaper, lower-storage-capacity flash-media players and pricier, entry-level hard-drive players that hold more than 1,000 songs.

The Sony flash-media players will be knocked out for as low as US$130 (€97/£68) – not as cheap as the new iPod Shuffle, but considered to be better value because of a longer battery life and more features.

“Flash is going to be here for a while, because it’s more affordable,” Kelly Davis, product manager for Sony Electronics, says. “People are trying to get more capacity for their dollar.

The new Sony players are expected to give the company the No. 2 position in the portable music player market by next year.

Apple’s iTunes service is also coming under attack, with rival Napster recently boosting its sales outlook with growing demand for its new “Napster To Go” subscription service, expected to generate US$15 million for its fiscal fourth quarter.

Apple is also experiencing competition from music services offered by rivals such as Microsoft Corp., Real Networks, and Yahoo.

The company still remains in good shape though, with Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicting continuing good sales for the iPod line.

“Our checks have left us more confident that demand for Apple’s key products most notably iMac, Powerbook, Mac mini and various versions of the iPod continue to be ahead of expectations,” Munster told clients in a research report. “We anticipate that strong demand across various segments of the company will allow Apple to exceed Wall Street estimates for overall revenue and earnings.”

Munster expects the company to report earnings of US$1.04 (€0.77 /£0.53) per share on revenue of US$12.81 billion in 2005, up from previous expectations of a 98% share profit on sales of US$12.25 billion.

Piper Jaffray told clients it expects Apple to sell 3.8 million iPods during the second quarter, including 1 million iPod shuffle models, followed by 4.6 million iPods during the third quarter, with the Shuffle model accounting for 1.8 million of the sales.

Apple Shares Fall on Sony, Napster Fears (PA)
Sony MP3 players
Apple iPod

DSC-T7: Sony Announces sexy 5.1mpx Camera – CeBIT 05

Sony DSC T7(CeBIT, Hannover) Wandering around the Sony products at the pre-CeBIT press conference, I came across the DSC-T7, the smallest, sexiest model whos roots lay with the DSC-T1.

Available in the to-be-expected silver and a sultry black, the DSC-T7 re-introduces Sony DSC T7a sliding cover that both covers and protects the lens and switches the camera on. Measuring only 14.8 mm / 0.6 in at the lens cover, and 9.8 mm / 0.4in for the main body, it packs 5.1m pixel. The back is taken up with a 2.5″ TFT Hybrid LCD, displaying 230,000 pixels.

As you can see from the shots, this baby is really slim and an instant object of desire. Sony think it will sell well to the female side of society and I wouldn’t be so exclusive – men will want this baby too, but we’d advise against popping it in your back pocket and sitting down. Sony DSC T7

Sony DSC T7Nothing definite on release dates or price but the talk in the corridors is it should be around in May for around 375Euro, $500, 260 UKP.

DSC-T7 Specs: DP Review
DSC-T7 Specs: Sony Press Release

Howard Stringer: Sony Appoints British Chairman

Sony Appoints British ChairmanIn an extraordinary move, Sony has named the Welsh-born head of its US operations, Sir Howard Stringer, as chairman and chief executive – a rare move for a major Japanese company to give its top post to a foreigner.

Sony’s board are set to agree to appoint the 63-year-old Stringer at an extraordinary meeting in Tokyo today, according to a company source.

Current CEO Nobuyuki Idei, 67, will step down to take responsibility for slumping earnings after what’s been described as ‘five rocky years’ at the helm.

(We think Sony is in a pretty strong position to rule in the time of Digital Lifestyles. They’ve got the content, they got tech and they’re got the cool. They just need to have a stong grip of how media has been changing, and what they can do to take best advantage of it. – Ed)

President Kunitake Ando is also rumoured to be up for the boot, to be replaced by Ryoji Chubachi, an executive deputy president currently in charge of electronics parts and production operations.

Tasked with boosting profitability at Sony, there’s a tough job ahead for Stringer and Chubachi, who are both mindful that their core electronics division has been wobbling in and out of the red amid tough price competition and a lack of big-hitting products.

In recent years Sony has failed to keep ahead of rivals Sharp Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in flat panel TVs and lost its lead in the portable music industry to Apple with its massively popular iPod player.

The market liked the sound of what it was hearing today, with shares of Sony rising 1.75 percent to 4,080 yen as of midday, outperforming the benchmark Nikkei average’s 0.68 percent gain.

Fellow Taffy-boy Stringer, holds dual British and U.S. citizenship and will become the first foreigner to run Sony.

The company are expected to announce its intention to make the proposed management changes before noon (10 pm EST) today, to be made official at a board meeting scheduled for after a general shareholders’ meeting in June.

Sony

Digital Music Forum :Summary

More than 400 industry professionals gathered for Digital Media Wire’s 5th annual Digital Music Forum at The French Institute in New York City on Wednesday. Discussion topics recalled the creation of the original Napster, examined the current business and legal environment, and looked ahead optimistically towards the future growth of subscription and mobile services.

In a widely anticipated keynote conversation, Napster founder Shawn Fanning described how early peer-to-peer file trading networks fundamentally changed consumer expectations for the breadth of music content available to them. Speaking about his new venture, Snocap, Fanning outlined his plans to create a central database for rights clearance while introducing a digital identification and acoustic fingerprinting architecture for file trading systems. Fanning expressed his hope that the creation of a trusted third party to manage rights administration will create an environment in which the interests of peer-to-peer companies, retailers, and content owners will not be in conflict.

Technology and rights management remained in the spotlight during a panel discussion about the forthcoming MGM v. Grokster case that will go before the Supreme Court on March 29th. At issue, according to Digital Media Association Executive Director Jonathan Potter, is whether a software developer can be held liable for the actions of its users. Martin Elgison, a partner at Alston & Bird, advocated separate assessments of legality for a company’s business conduct and the associated technology. Jim Delong, senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, agreed that the courts need to examine a company’s underlying business model and question whether it depends on copyright infringement.

Speaking to technology’s current effects on artist management, Nettwerk Productions CEO Terry McBride conveyed that digitization currently represents a mixed opportunity for his clients like Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies. On the one hand, McBride reported, Barenaked Ladies sold more than 900,000 live tracks in the past year and archives 150 concerts for sale online. On the other, he voiced concern that his artists’ catalog sales are being negatively affected by peer-to-peer file trading. On the whole, McBride was bullish on technology’s long-term potential, both for management companies seeking to provide for all their clients’ needs, as well as for artists pursuing long term careers.

In an afternoon keynote, Yahoo Music Vice President and General Manager David Goldberg highlighted the opportunities created by consumers’ desires to discover and control their music in an on-demand environment. Goldberg predicted the continued emergence of subscription-based digital music services, as well as the use of customization and community functionality to drive traffic and consumer engagement. According to Goldberg, playlists will become the “killer app of music” for users confronted with more than a million tracks at their fingertips and services will need to focus on delivering appropriate recommendations to create the ultimate listening experience.

MSN Marketplaces General Manager Mike Conte addressed Microsoft’s digital music effort which initially launched last October as an a-la-carte download service. According to Conte, Microsoft is principally involved with music to drive traffic and advertisers to MSN.com while contributing to the company’s strategy to build an overall ecosystem for digital media. While emphasizing that Microsoft’s plans were still in their early stages, Conte echoed Goldberg in emphasizing the importance of building community to engage customers and alluded to future digital music integration with messaging, blogging and playlist capabilities. Conte also agreed with predictions for the future growth of subscription services, citing company research indicating that the younger the consumer, the lower the likelihood that they desire to own their music.

During morning and afternoon panels, participants painted a positive future for the mobile music marketplace. Sony BMG Senior Vice President Thomas Gewecke noted that mobile services continue to be the dominant digital revenue stream outside the United States. Gewecke further predicted that mobile devices will become the dominant method for initial music purchases, even if the content is eventually consumed on another platform. Sprint General Manager of Wireless Music and Personalization Nancy Beaton reported that music represents an important way for the company to boost its current average monthly bill of $62. Beaton also cited successful ringtone launches with artists like Beyonce and 50 Cent, with both reaching platinum sales levels.

Thanks to Wesley Radez (wradez @ digitalmusicnews.com) over at Digital Music News for this report.

Sony Ericsson W800: Walkman Phone Launched

Sony Ericsson W800 Announces First Walkman Branded Mobile PhoneWhen Sony start slapping the world famous Walkman mobile music brand on their products, you know that they mean business, and their new Sony Ericsson W800 has been proudly trumpeted as the first mobile phone to combine a high-quality digital music player and a 2 Megapixel camera.

The W800 will come equipped with a two-megapixel camera, GPRS data access and a digital music player compatible with MP3 and AAC music file formats. As is the case with several comparable music phones, song playback can be paused as users take phone calls.

The music player is operated with a Direct Music button that plays, pauses and stops tracks. Conveniently, the player and phone can be used independently of each other, so that users can still playback tunes when on a flight, for example.

Some music fans may be dismayed to see Sony resolutely sticking to their proprietary Memory Stick Duo, with the phone being supplied with a 512MB memory card, enough storage for around 150 music tracks, or 10-12 full length CDs.

Pundits expect the initial focus being on consumers shifting their CDs onto the device, with Sony expected to announce the ability for consumers to download tracks from “open standards music services” later in the year.

Steve Walker, Sony Ericsson head of product marketing has described the move to the phone-as-music-player as “a new lifestyle behaviour” (whatever that means) and suggested vendors will have to start finding new ways of describing multimedia mobiles.

Sony Ericsson W800 Announces First Walkman Branded Mobile PhoneSadly, we’re going to have to wait a while before we can start adjusting our lifestyle behaviour – the release of the Sony Ericsson W800 is not scheduled until the third quarter of 2005

The mobile music market is growing exponentially, with Juniper Research calculating the music download and ring tones market to generate a whopping great US$9.3bn (€7.05bn/£4.8bn) globally by 2009.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the Sony Ericsson W800 is another step in the accelerating convergence between phones and multimedia devices, and we wonder how long it will be before someone brings out an iPod-type device integrated with a phone, video player and high res camera (an ‘iPodPictureVideoPhone, if you will!).

We’d like one just as soon as you’re ready, techies!

Sony Ericsson

Hironobu Sakaguchi Snagged By Microsoft Xbox Shock

Hironobu Sakaguchi Microsoft Hires Final Fantasy Creator For Xbox 2 Next Gen GamesMicrosoft is teaming up with one of Japan’s hotshot video game developers to create games for its next-generation video game console, XBox2 – a sure-fire sign that it’s determined to grab a fat slice of the Japanese market.

Having created compelling games for both Nintendo and Sony in the past, renowned Japanese video game developer Hironobu Sakaguchi has been signed up by Microsoft in the hope that he’ll sprinkle some fairy dust over their next-generation Xbox system.

Sakaguchi’s new company, Tokyo-based Mistwalker, will work with Microsoft’s game studio in Tokyo to make the games.

“This is a shot across the bow that we are serious about the Japanese market,” said Peter Moore, corporate vice president of worldwide marketing and publishing at Microsoft. “This is but the first salvo in what is going to be an interesting year.”

Things haven’t worked out too well for Microsoft’s XBox so far in Japan: disappointing sales followed its launch in 2002, with just 1.7 million units being shifted in all of Japan and Asia Pacific, placing it a distant third behind market leaders Sony and Nintendo.

Microsoft hopes that the collaboration with Sakaguchi’s game development studio, Mistwalker, will send sales soaring.

“Lately, we’ve seen only sequels released on the domestic game market,” Sakaguchi said. “I want to create something gamers can immerse themselves in and recall for a long time afterward by offering a new type of fun that only next-generation machines can provide.”

Hironobu Sakaguchi Microsoft Hires Final Fantasy Creator For Xbox 2 Next Gen GamesA founding member of former video game software developer Square Co., the 42-year-old is famed for creating the role-playing series, ‘Final Fantasy’, which has shifted more than 60 million copies to date.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Sakaguchi however. His attempt to cross into film with a US$210 million (€158m/£109m) movie using state-of-the-art computer animation to create lifelike human characters didn’t hit pay dirt.

Released in 2001, “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” proved to be a box office flop and Sakaguchi resigned from Square as a result.

Microsoft is hoping that Sakaguchi’s experience in both role-playing games and high-end animation could provide the leverage to persuade gamers to upgrade to its next system, which will support high-definition TV formats and improved computer graphics.

“Sakaguchi has taken role-playing games – traditionally a niche market – and introduced them to a broad and diverse audience across the globe,” Peter Moore, corporate vice president of worldwide marketing and publishing at Microsoft, said in a statement. “We are ecstatic to work with Sakaguchi.”

The industry remains rife with rumours about when the XBox2 might finally launch, with some suggesting that it may try to surprise the gaming world by showing its Xbox 2 console well before this May’s E3 show in Los Angeles.

According to online sources, the Redmond software giant has an Xbox 2 conference of ‘significant importance’ slated for some point in March 2005.

xbox2-news
Microsoft
Mistwalker
“Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”

Sony Clie PDA: End Of The Line

Sony Stops Development On Its Clie PDA RangeSony has announced that it is to end production on its Clie line of PDAs in Japan.

The move comes eight months after the company said it would stop developing new Clie models for the US and European markets, to concentrate on Japanese users.

First launched by the Tokyo company in mid-2000, Sony’s Clie handhelds gave an almighty kick up the backside of PalmOne and stirred up the market with a series of dazzling innovations.

Their last two European models, the TH55 and UX50 were both highly regarded, offering a full suite of connectivity options (Bluetooth, wi-fi, infrared) supported by Sony’s proprietary software and the huge Palm back catalogue.

In Japan, Sony had the top share of the domestic PDA market in 2003 at 32%, followed by Sharp (19%) and Casio (16%), according to information and technology industry researcher Gartner Japan Ltd.

Sony’s total retreat from the PDA market was considered a serious blow to PalmSource who have yet to match Sony’s ground-breaking designs.

This latest announcement looks like another nail in the coffin for the PDA – as mobile phones, portable media players, and even gaming consoles sport ever-expanding PDA-like capabilities, the PDA market seems to be ever-shrinking.

In an interview with PC World, Sony spokesperson Aki Shimazu said, “There won’t be any new Clie PDAs but we are not necessarily exiting the PDA business”. She also added that the company may collaborate with other companies for future devices.

Sony Stops Development On Its Clie PDA RangeOur guess is that they’re going to focus their energies on ramping up the feature list on Sony Ericsson smartphones, developing the PlayStation Portable and finally producing the iPod killer they so desperately need.

Loyal Clie users still wailing into their beers at the prospect of losing a much loved product line (that’ll be me) can draw the tiniest scrap of consolation out of the news that Sony will keep providing parts and repair services for at least another six years or so.

Shareholders at Palm will probably have even longer faces after losing such a vital licensee for their operating system. Could this be the beginning of the end for Palm?

Clie PDA