Amidst the stories about Steve Jobs trying to get Sony to run MacOS on the Vaio we now get this note that Sony is exiting the PC business. Its too bad, I've owned a number of Vaio laptops over the years and have really liked most of them.
Wow. It's kind of sad how Sony seems to be just wasting away. I don't know what PS4 sales numbers are like relative to XBox or even the older systems, but it just feels like if XBox hadn't so royally screwed up with their nonsense about not being able to lend out games, I feel like PS4 would be grasping for air right about now.
depends where in the world you are i guess (regarding the consoles).
also in the long run people won't remember about the whole lending fiasco.
now to me sony laptops are a bit ovepriced. my last two PC notebooks were from Asus and I am happy with them. They were at least 25% cheaper than similar sony models.
Sony Fit E15 was a good machine at a good price. But by the time Sony began making these lower cost machines, they already solidified the "too expensive" mindset.
People probably didn't even realize that Sony had a ~$500 line of laptops (which, when upgraded to "reasonable" specs, would be closer to $750 or $800 of course... but that is a reasonably priced laptop)
They should have hired a 12 year old to point out the obvious flaws in their products, which are typically quite good but with arbitrary gaping holes.
I hope the VAIO machines stay around, under the rule of someone that knows how to transform their high-end products into high-end products that people really want.
It's not that they don't know about the flaws; it's usually bureaucracy and compromises that lead to obviously broken features in products. That will take more than a 12 year old to fix.
I think ultimately it requires having a strong champion empowered to make big calls. In product development, what I have seen happen is that everyone has strong views about what must be included for a product to succeed.
With no one with either authority or guts to take a stance for and against features, a bunch of average shit gets shipped in hopes of somewhat satisfying everyone instead of really satisfying a core group of customers.
it is solvable in organizations with people who have an enormous amount of credibility within the company. The most commmon examples are people who either founded the company or can credibly claim to have been their transformative savior (or in the case of Steve Jobs, both).
Of course, founders have a way of either dying (Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard, and Steve Jobs again) or "losing their touch" (Mike Lazaridis of RIM).
I would be curious of any examples in which there was such an undisputed leader at a company who was neither its founder nor its savior.
In light of the "management engineering" slant, the way people organizations seem to get made reminds me of the old meme that buildings in the far past were 'designed' only to the extent that they didn't follow the exact design of some other building which had fallen down. And in that vein, the answers by zaidf and sirkneeland, are like: buildings above some size keep falling down, so add a big central column in the middle to support the weight. Make all of the building depend on that central column.
But buildings evolved to have arches and open domes, no central column needed. Why can't the same be done with people-based control/oversight/management systems? Building a beautiful structure dependent on all/many the members around, not just a central support/dictator.
Just because you have one person who makes the final call does not mean he isn't reliant on other members of his team.
The way Gates describes his process resonates with me:
In terms of deciding what programs are going to do, a fairly large group makes suggestions. Then there’s a filtering process. Eventually I’ll decide which of the ideas makes sense, and I’ll make sure we have champions who are personally involved in making that product succeed.
Back in the day flash memory was expensive, the RioDimond was for geeks who had far too much money and far too little music.
The NetMD was brilliant, Transfer music via USB from your PC, long battery life, cheap enough MDs, you could have days of music with you. I loved the device, I loved the concept.
The software. Oh my. The software. Ergh.
Apparently it had the code name symphony. A quick history lesson, it's the late 70s, moustaches were plentiful and Sony released BetaMax. They blamed the failure on a lack of content. So when they and phillips championed the audio CD, they knew that they should do something, they bought a bunch of companies and created (eventually) Sony Records. That worked well. Really well, the profits were huge and by the late 90s sony records eclipsed sony electronics.
We now jump forward to the NetMD project coming online, the records division apparently were un-happy. So a bunch of restrictions were brought in, you could only transfer a song to the NetMD 3 times. That was your limit. The software and interface where buggy, so this became a problem if it crashed during the transfer.
A brilliant device was nobbled by the internal politics. I still say it wasn't until 8gb+ capacities became cheap, that any mp3 player surpassed it.
I would love to be able to provide some sources for this, I was told it by someone who contacted me after I'd stopped work on my util NetMDCalls [1] which was for helping people provide a FOSS alternative to sonic stage. I had a nice person explain that I was breaking the licensing of their software and to stop development on it, but because I was a minor they wouldn't do anything to me, sadly, my parents did not share my libertarian views and development stopped as my NetMD was confiscated.
They also hobbled the functionality so you could not get digital recordings from the device. Lots of DJs, producers, etc... wanted to use it to record live music sessions, then transfer them to their machine at home.
This is when Sony fucked themselves, they went from an amazing electronics company, to a content producing company with a shitty electronics side. All the decisions were made by the content side. This is when they started their slide.
It is awful to think about, when you read about the origins of Sony, and how much they were revered for producing top of the line stuff in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
I'm serious about the 12-year-old point: that's not pejorative, I think that young people can sometimes be very good at identifying the problems that older people miss. Maybe youth has less to do with it than staying distant from convention, and having an imagination and attention for detail.
Sony will get so close at times, and then just... miss the mark. My super expensive ultraportable Vaio had some great ideas but a flimsy screen, bright aggressive LEDs, giant VAIO lettering all over, an awful out-of-box Crapware-Inside accept-these-license-terms experience, tragic speakers, a roaring-hot battery-draining graphics card, and a host of other little problems.
I think everybody pretty much knows what's wrong with Sony. No need to hire 12-year-olds or anyone else, besides a Jobs- or Gates-like authority figure who can put the DRM-obsessed content division and assorted NIH die-hards in the PC division in their place (or preferably ditch them altogether.)
This is pretty sad to me. Sony has a lot of great ideas and their style for VAIO products I can't think of any other manufacturer than Apple with anything approaching it.
Their tablet->laptop convertible machines especially are really good pieces of tech. I know the one complaint about the flip13 is that the battery life isn't super great, but the concept and design are truly cool. I've also worked with/used the Duo13 and while the flip function is a bit weird, the whole kit is really great.
Oh well, hopefully the new owners do something great (I know Sony is not without issue).
Hey all you guys who make PC's, here's an idea on how to make some money. Build a good laptop, let me upgrade it, and support it.
Apple right now makes some of the best hardware you can buy, and they are pretty profitable doing it. The problem is I can't upgrade it. I would spend a fair bit of money for a good quality (materials, and parts) laptop. No one seems to be doing that any more. Most laptops have these huge clunky plastic cases, with cheap parts, and terrible support.
I think the macbook pro has been one of the easiest laptops to take apart and service. There's no locking screw hidden underneath the keyboard that requires a plastic bezel snapped out of place (prone to breaking) in order to get to a hard drive or something. You simply take out all the bottom screws, and the entire lower shell is removed to expose everything, even the mainboard.
It's a wonderful design, however Apple has since decided to solder the SSD and memory to the mainboard, making them non-serviceable. This is not a choice made to make the device more beautiful or more affordable. They did it to be greedy.
We as consumers can have all three if we demanded it, but there's money to be made cutting corners and most people don't understand how to vote with their dollars.
Direct soldering reduces manufacturing cost, increases ruggedness and reliability (with fewer connectors) and reduces size and weight. You could argue for a different tradeoff, but there are reasons other than greed why Apple would choose it.
> Build a good laptop, let me upgrade it, and support it.
How do you define "upgrade it."
Lenovo sells the Yoga ultrabook, it's thin, affordable $800-$1,000, has a great (in my opinion) build quality using soft touch plastic, includes a Haswell processor, and you can manually upgrade the SSD and RAM. It has a cheap wifi chip (no 5ghz? really?), but otherwise fits the bill you described.
Is the storage and ram enough? Or do you want more than that. Because I imagine it gets really tricky to build a thin, light, sturdy and reliable laptop that still lets you upgrade every single part.
Having DRAM and flash that aren't soldered to the board is indeed an important aspect to "upgradable". I'd point out, though, that that "cheap wifi chip" would be less of a problem if it could be, y'know, replaced. There is even a connector standard (M.2, which is a combo mini-pcie and usb thing) for these things that doesn't suck. Except it never works because the vendors whitelist their components in the firmware.
Few PC makers seemed to be consistently as willing to try wild new ideas with their devices.
Whether it was because of Apple reasons ("we are too focused on a small number of sure winners...oh and a G4 cube") or HP/Dell reasons ("we are really into playing it safe"), there were just few companies that could do things like Sony could.
I think it takes a certain amount (if not an outright surplus) of engineering hands and manufacturing capacity to be able to do experiments like Sony's VAIO division did. Think of the truly bizarre and occasionally beautiful devices coming out of Nokia in their mid-2000s peak, or IBM in the era of their "butterfly" keyboard..
If you look at those key ingredients for what it takes to "get weird with it" (those surpluses of capability and capacity), I'd say the next ones to get weird with it would be Samsung (need I remind you Samsung has in recent memory tried a Galaxy with a curved screen, a Galaxy with a mini projector...), LG, and a whoooole bunch of Chinese companies we probably haven't even heard of yet.
Except for HP--they 'don't play it safe'; They epitomize
the two year laptop, and even two years is a stretch.
At this point, I want longevity over something gimmicky.
I think I'll have to go back to 2003 in Stewie's time machine and buy a toshiba P25-S607(still a functional computer years later--with three cooling fans). As to Sony--I liked there products, but found they seemed to breakdown
too soon too? I really think consumers want an honest computer company--get rid of the CEO's who don't know a soldering gun, from a curling gun(HP again); get rid of the
MBA's and give us stuff that is designed to last. Apple
was moving in the right direction, but they should put
Linux on every model they ship. Steve would understand the
importance of that last sentence, but I doubt the figure
head would get it? While I'm on it--Apple if you are listening--this is the last dollar you get from me. Mavericks is terrible(you should have told your customers
abut certain software just won't work), and I heard you new
MBP is hard to work on. Most Computer dudes are poor. We
don't make the big money you seem to think we do? If I was
in charge of the new Sony spinoff, I would design a computer
that us built to last, and is easy to work on. Build enough
mother boards and store them in a mini storage until your
customers need them. Be different, and stress longevity
over incremental speed. Exploit the fact that most men don't like throwing things away--especially things we once
loved.
Why do you think Steve Jobs would have wanted to sell Apple computers with Linux pre-installed? That seems like the exact opposite of what Steve would have wanted, and what he actually did.
100% unrelated but I noticed you put "we don't make the big money you seem to think we do?" with a question mark at the end. It's not really a question, now is it? I've noticed this typing behavior a lot online lately and I am not sure if I missed a crucial lesson in English or if it's a new-age kind of thing, or what. Not trying to be a prick, it just stuck out. I agree with your point on HP laptops in more ways than I can count.
I'm surprised people are surprised. Sony has no server business. They are in the thankless margin-less laptop/desktop business. That's a problem with no solution.
Before I went off to Mac land I only used vaios from early 2000's to 2010. They were all great computers but I am not sure they kept innovating it seemed like minor updates to most models.
In my city they also had Vaio stores just like Apple and most of their products were much better than Dell and Hp at that time. I enjoyed checking them out from time to time.
33 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 69.5 ms ] threadnow to me sony laptops are a bit ovepriced. my last two PC notebooks were from Asus and I am happy with them. They were at least 25% cheaper than similar sony models.
Sony Fit E15 was a good machine at a good price. But by the time Sony began making these lower cost machines, they already solidified the "too expensive" mindset.
People probably didn't even realize that Sony had a ~$500 line of laptops (which, when upgraded to "reasonable" specs, would be closer to $750 or $800 of course... but that is a reasonably priced laptop)
I hope the VAIO machines stay around, under the rule of someone that knows how to transform their high-end products into high-end products that people really want.
With no one with either authority or guts to take a stance for and against features, a bunch of average shit gets shipped in hopes of somewhat satisfying everyone instead of really satisfying a core group of customers.
Of course, founders have a way of either dying (Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard, and Steve Jobs again) or "losing their touch" (Mike Lazaridis of RIM).
I would be curious of any examples in which there was such an undisputed leader at a company who was neither its founder nor its savior.
But buildings evolved to have arches and open domes, no central column needed. Why can't the same be done with people-based control/oversight/management systems? Building a beautiful structure dependent on all/many the members around, not just a central support/dictator.
The way Gates describes his process resonates with me:
In terms of deciding what programs are going to do, a fairly large group makes suggestions. Then there’s a filtering process. Eventually I’ll decide which of the ideas makes sense, and I’ll make sure we have champions who are personally involved in making that product succeed.
http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/bill-gates-1986/
The NetMD.
Back in the day flash memory was expensive, the RioDimond was for geeks who had far too much money and far too little music.
The NetMD was brilliant, Transfer music via USB from your PC, long battery life, cheap enough MDs, you could have days of music with you. I loved the device, I loved the concept.
The software. Oh my. The software. Ergh.
Apparently it had the code name symphony. A quick history lesson, it's the late 70s, moustaches were plentiful and Sony released BetaMax. They blamed the failure on a lack of content. So when they and phillips championed the audio CD, they knew that they should do something, they bought a bunch of companies and created (eventually) Sony Records. That worked well. Really well, the profits were huge and by the late 90s sony records eclipsed sony electronics.
We now jump forward to the NetMD project coming online, the records division apparently were un-happy. So a bunch of restrictions were brought in, you could only transfer a song to the NetMD 3 times. That was your limit. The software and interface where buggy, so this became a problem if it crashed during the transfer.
A brilliant device was nobbled by the internal politics. I still say it wasn't until 8gb+ capacities became cheap, that any mp3 player surpassed it.
I would love to be able to provide some sources for this, I was told it by someone who contacted me after I'd stopped work on my util NetMDCalls [1] which was for helping people provide a FOSS alternative to sonic stage. I had a nice person explain that I was breaking the licensing of their software and to stop development on it, but because I was a minor they wouldn't do anything to me, sadly, my parents did not share my libertarian views and development stopped as my NetMD was confiscated.
[1] - http://www.0bytes.net/netmd/
This is when Sony fucked themselves, they went from an amazing electronics company, to a content producing company with a shitty electronics side. All the decisions were made by the content side. This is when they started their slide.
It is awful to think about, when you read about the origins of Sony, and how much they were revered for producing top of the line stuff in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Sony will get so close at times, and then just... miss the mark. My super expensive ultraportable Vaio had some great ideas but a flimsy screen, bright aggressive LEDs, giant VAIO lettering all over, an awful out-of-box Crapware-Inside accept-these-license-terms experience, tragic speakers, a roaring-hot battery-draining graphics card, and a host of other little problems.
I've seen many companies where everyone is following process, and doing their job, yet nothing gets done, or worse, there is no quality improvement.
Their tablet->laptop convertible machines especially are really good pieces of tech. I know the one complaint about the flip13 is that the battery life isn't super great, but the concept and design are truly cool. I've also worked with/used the Duo13 and while the flip function is a bit weird, the whole kit is really great.
Oh well, hopefully the new owners do something great (I know Sony is not without issue).
Apple right now makes some of the best hardware you can buy, and they are pretty profitable doing it. The problem is I can't upgrade it. I would spend a fair bit of money for a good quality (materials, and parts) laptop. No one seems to be doing that any more. Most laptops have these huge clunky plastic cases, with cheap parts, and terrible support.
-Beautiful
-User upgradeable/serviceable
-Affordable
It's a wonderful design, however Apple has since decided to solder the SSD and memory to the mainboard, making them non-serviceable. This is not a choice made to make the device more beautiful or more affordable. They did it to be greedy.
We as consumers can have all three if we demanded it, but there's money to be made cutting corners and most people don't understand how to vote with their dollars.
How do you define "upgrade it."
Lenovo sells the Yoga ultrabook, it's thin, affordable $800-$1,000, has a great (in my opinion) build quality using soft touch plastic, includes a Haswell processor, and you can manually upgrade the SSD and RAM. It has a cheap wifi chip (no 5ghz? really?), but otherwise fits the bill you described.
Is the storage and ram enough? Or do you want more than that. Because I imagine it gets really tricky to build a thin, light, sturdy and reliable laptop that still lets you upgrade every single part.
Whether it was because of Apple reasons ("we are too focused on a small number of sure winners...oh and a G4 cube") or HP/Dell reasons ("we are really into playing it safe"), there were just few companies that could do things like Sony could.
I think it takes a certain amount (if not an outright surplus) of engineering hands and manufacturing capacity to be able to do experiments like Sony's VAIO division did. Think of the truly bizarre and occasionally beautiful devices coming out of Nokia in their mid-2000s peak, or IBM in the era of their "butterfly" keyboard..
If you look at those key ingredients for what it takes to "get weird with it" (those surpluses of capability and capacity), I'd say the next ones to get weird with it would be Samsung (need I remind you Samsung has in recent memory tried a Galaxy with a curved screen, a Galaxy with a mini projector...), LG, and a whoooole bunch of Chinese companies we probably haven't even heard of yet.
But today, we take Sony off that list.
In my city they also had Vaio stores just like Apple and most of their products were much better than Dell and Hp at that time. I enjoyed checking them out from time to time.