Sony Connect gets adopted by portable audio division

As part of its larger internal reorganization to grab market share from rivals like the Cupertino Killer, Sony has put its struggling Connect service under the authority of portable audio division chief Hiroshi Yoshioka. The Connect service has received a plethora of complaints since its inception, from an unintuitive UI to heavy-handed DRM restrictions, and Yoshioka is tasked, among other things, with making the separate content and hardware divisions play nicely together. Connect is seen as an important component of Sony's 'net strategy, as the perceived quality of the service and its downloads could make or break hardware devices like the upcoming Sony Reader. We wish Sony luck with its reorganization (sorry, we couldn't find the proper card at Hallmark), and hope that this shake-up will shake out some proprietary annoyances like MemorySticks, UMDs, MiniDiscs, etc, etc. from our overstuffed media library.

[scottE @ Jan 20th 2006 9:14PM]

Sony is shooting on all cylinders these days.....right into their collective feet.

[steve @ Jan 20th 2006 10:18PM]

I'm going to guess that a re-org isn't going to do it. They need people who understand design and user experience. You just don't move divisions around and forge onward - these are fundamentally different skill sets - you just don't bolt things together.

I suspect we'll see another re-org next year when Sony's market cap is $30B.

[DirtHerder @ Jan 20th 2006 10:43PM]

Knocking DRM I can understand, but man... the proprietary format (particularly memorystick) digs are soooooo tired and not really warranted.

There are plenty of people, perfectly happy with it (with good reason) and, as should be obvious to anyone that takes half a look, there is no f-in standard in that space anyway (at least Sony made an attempt to unify across its products... past tense of course).

Time to move on already.

[Oliver @ Jan 21st 2006 4:09AM]

I for one love my 1gb Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo. I love my Sony digital camera and SonyEricsson phone almost as much as i love my iPod.

But yeah other than that Sony sucks!


...

[John Molina @ Jan 21st 2006 2:18PM]

Yeah the "proprietary format" insults ARE really old, especially since we know that a few of those "proprietary formats" have found their own little niches in society.

MiniDiscs found a home with musicians, though their phasing out by the DAP phenomenon was inevitable.

MemorySticks are still alive and kicking. 4GB and
8GB Pro Duos coming out this year? Did you forget about that one?

So stop being such a jerk.

[Michael @ Jan 21st 2006 3:58PM]

Im surprised no one mentioned the software you have to use to use the sony-connect service -.-
They should really work on that too, its very slow, laggy and buggy..

[Jeff Lewis @ Jan 21st 2006 8:42PM]

To the people defending Sony's proprietary standards for storage, they're missing a couple of basic issues. The fact that you like it (or more accurately, you don't mind it) isn't much of a selling point.

When I have a camera, a videogame, a DAP, a PDA and so on, and each one uses a different standard for storage, it becomes a pain and expensive. Sony uses MemoryStick for a simple reason: if you have any one Sony product which uses it - you're more likely to buy other Sony products, just to share the same media.

That's a lousy way to get customers.

But there's a bigger issue - even if we accept the notion that it's ok to have several dozen storage formats, Sony doesn't even consistently support them on their own platforms! Why invent a whole new format (UMD) when they already had a format (MiniDisk)? They could have used the same physical format even if the actual media itself isn't compatible, and then offer compatibility with existing MiniDisks.

Why don't they use MiniDisk in their disk cameras? Why use recordable CD?

And so on and so on.

Sony's media saga is legendary for the degree of self-inflicted injury they've caused. The only good news? Well, it took a while, but they finally realised that Atrac wasn't going to catch on and people wanted MP3.. which they FINALLY started to include.

Perhaps there's hope that Sony will think more about the customer than trying to push their proprietary standards.

[John Molina @ Jan 21st 2006 8:47PM]

Yeah, I had hope for Sony's new Connect software. But it's crappy. Stickin' with iTunes here, even if I do end up buying a DAP that's not an iPod.

[Sp1n @ Jan 21st 2006 11:17PM]

^^^^^^

if u dont know what`s the difference between UMD and MD - then dont say this kind of stuff. Saying something about those 2(umd and md) products without experience using them is just a crap comments that came out of the ass.

One of the main reasons for not using MD in their cameras and PSP is because MD has a limited speed of writing which is too slow for cameras or PSP.

Another reason is that UMD format(as far as i know) is not writable, since Sony didnt release UMD drives yet.

"When I have a camera, a videogame, a DAP, a PDA and so on, and each one uses a different standard for storage, it becomes a pain and expensive. Sony uses MemoryStick for a simple reason: if you have any one Sony product which uses it - you're more likely to buy other Sony products, just to share the same media.

That's a lousy way to get customers."

You contradict yourself, sony uses this format to make it easier for the user - you said it urself, but then you crap on youself again...how sad;)

And ya atrac isnt popular because you have to convert your mp3s to it - THATs the only reason why.

On the plus side - atrac is very good for saving space on your precious DAP. Sony also uses atrac since with atrac sony`s DAPs sound really good(which they do even with mp3 - i have tested all the major DAPs(with the same heaphones) on the market and Sony`s products always sounded much better then other DAPS).

anyways, you got some beating but it`s all good, just try to stop sayin stuff that you have no idea about.

[DirtHerder @ Jan 21st 2006 11:20PM]

"When I have a camera, a videogame, a DAP, a PDA and so on, and each one uses a different standard for storage, it becomes a pain and expensive."

Yeah... so? This would seem to support Sony's original move to use MS' across its product line.

"Sony uses MemoryStick for a simple reason: if you have any one Sony product which uses it - you're more likely to buy other Sony products, just to share the same media."

Sure, that is probably part of it (part of their intent is to turn a profit after all), but that's hardly the only reason why a company would do something like that. besides if their products were crap, no one would buy them... regardless of whether or not it used the same memory format as another product they owned.

"That's a lousy way to get customers."

Please, do you seriously think that this is their "master plan" for getting customers? you're gonna have to work harder than that to come up with a believable (or at least entertaining) evil empire media enthrallment theory.

"But there's a bigger issue - even if we accept the notion that it's ok to have several dozen storage formats, Sony doesn't even consistently support them on their own platforms!"

Alright, finally something I can agree with... especially with the introduction of the Duo and their even smaller memory stick formats... now that is definitely frustrating...

"Why invent a whole new format (UMD) when they already had a format (MiniDisk)? They could have used the same physical format even if the actual media itself isn't compatible, and then offer compatibility with existing MiniDisks."

...

so much for finally agreeing with you...

Use the same physical format for incompatible products (because of the progress of technology)? Do you hear yourself?

"Why don't they use MiniDisk in their disk cameras? Why use recordable CD?"

... 'caaaause... it's cheaper? 'caaause... when these cameras were being introduced MiniDisc was still not a popular format?... 'caaaaaause... you can play an 8 cm cd-r in a STANDARD cd-rom???

Come on man! You can do better than that!

"And so on and so on."

ok.. I changed my mind... don't try to do better... just stop...

... someone make the bad man stop...

"Sony's media saga is legendary for the degree of self-inflicted injury they've caused. The only good news? Well, it took a while, but they finally realised that Atrac wasn't going to catch on and people wanted MP3.. which they FINALLY started to include."

Yes that was indeed a nice move on their part. It doesn't matter how superior a codec might be (there are many claims that bitrate for bitrate ATRAC is a better performer), if the market doesn't want it, the market doesn't want it. Kinda silly to ignore the numbers.

I think Sony's biggest achilles heal has always been its software. It is generally sub par, and user unfriendly. Sony should really just stick to what they do best. Cool hardware and gadgets, and leave the software to someone else... or even better, design their gear so that no aditional software is needed to interface with a PC/Mac. Now that would actually be something worthwhile.

Lastly, I just gotta say.. "more accurately don't mind it" is rather presumptuous ... and grossly inaccurate. Like some of the other conclusions drawn in yonder posting.

[The Jeremy @ Jan 23rd 2006 1:35PM]

Sony should throw in the towel on the Connect service and renegotiate a deal with Apple to share the iTunes Store. Jobs did offer them a slice of the pie back in 2004, only to be rebuffed by Sony's failed go-it-alone strategy which was prior to Sir Howard Stringer's historic promotion.

[John Davidson @ Feb 3rd 2006 2:26PM]

The new(ish) sony Mp3 players NWA1000 etc are really nice bits of kit, but sadly the Connect software is utterly dire ( slow , processor heavy and prone to lock up). Reverting to SonicStage 3 improves the ability to load songs but you do lose some of the software features on the set.

[BonyDisconnect @ Feb 4th 2006 5:23AM]

The Connect service is not done yet. Hell, the students writing it have skipped all their midterms to keep at it. The fact of the matter is that they don't know about writing a workable client. The service, for the most part, is fine... it's the client that's shitting the bed.