Sony Ericsson Set To Unveil Walkman Phones
Trafficking on the success of the Walkman, which sold 340 million units since 1979, SonyEricsson chief Miles Flint told Reuters here in Cannes that it intends to ship "digital Walkman phones" in March. The new phones will get access to Sony's online music service, called "Connect". But we've talked about disConnect here before: we find the service another crippling attempt at not just DRM, but also locking customers in to a proprietary music format and store. One fact is perfectly obvious to Techdirt, but apparently not to Sony: Sony would NOT have sold 640M Walkman units if it decided to use a proprietary tape format instead of the standard audio cassette. How can a company so consistently mis-guidedly not follow their own example? There are business school case studies on Sony's failure with Betamax, and success with the Walkman. Hasn't Sony read them? Note: We corrected the number of shipped Walkmans from 640M to 340M.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
