i don´t remember who wrote it.. about sony

[Canon-F1]

.... but i do remember someone wrote sony is a bigger company then canon and has more money for R&D.

he wrote canon had to fear sony, because sony has so much more money to spend on developing cameras.


well... he was obviously wrong and now look at this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/10/us-sony-idUSBRE83907220120410

Kazuo Hirai, who took over as Sony's CEO this month, has said he is prepared to take "painful steps" to revive the company, insisting he would not hesitate to scale back or withdraw from businesses he deemed uncompetitive. He will lay out his revival strategy in more detail at a briefing scheduled for Thursday.

im curious what that means for sonys high-end camera business...

[JR]

They will likely need to re-assess every market segment they are in to see if they are profitable.  Some will be dropped.  Hard to say for now which one.  Am sure they will want to look at it carefully.

Such a great brand name, this is a great business challenge to turn it around!

[Mt Spokane Photography]

There is little doubt that money losing product lines at Sony may be axed. 
 
Yet, Sony drives customers away with their fixed pricing schemes, poor customer service, and most importantly, making products that customers do not want.
 
In their FY 2011 report, they say that they Focus areas for growth are in Imaging technology, Networking, and 3D including OLED monitors, and in emerging markets.  This is where they will be spending their cash.
 
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2011/index.html
 
Sony is a bigger company than Canon, and has the talent, factory capabilities, R&D, and cash to sink into a venture if they see it as a money maker.  Like all companies, they have to live within a budget, and when times are tough, they tighten their belt.  The fact that they continue to show losses is a big concern, because stockholders want profits.
 
"In a bid to ease investor concerns over its deteriorating bottom line, Sony forecast it would bounce back in the current year to end-March 2013 with an operating profit of 180 billion yen ($2.2 billion)."
 
As far as cash in the bank. Sony had 1,.014 Trillion yen in cash at the end of FY 2011.  Sony has assets of 12.9 TRILLION yen!!  They are not in the poor house. 
 
Canon, by comparison had 773 million yen in cash at the end of the year, so for a smaller company, they are in much better condition than Sony as far as cash to spend on their much smaller operations.
 
Bottom line, Sony is not going to be outspending Canon in Imaging R&D, but they have such fantastic production capabilities that they can churn out products at lower prices if need be.  If they allowed resellers to discount products sales might just takle off.

[Canon-F1]

Sony is a bigger company than Canon

last time i checked canon had more employees then sony.

so i wonder what are your referring too when you say bigger?

sony total equity : US$ 30.74 billion
 
canon total equity: US$ 34 billion

in total assets sony is bigger yes... for what it´s worth when you make loss year after year.
we will see what is left after the consolidation.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Sony is a bigger company than Canon

last time i checked canon had more employees then sony.

so i wonder what are your referring too when you say bigger?

sony total equity : US$ 30.74 billion

 

in total assets sony is bigger yes... for what it´s worth when you make loss year after year.
we will see what is left after the consolidation.

Bigger in total value. Its hard to pin down number of employees with the complex scheme of companies owning companies owning companies and so forth.
 
As I noted, Sony is not going to be able to outspend Canon on research and development in the imaging area, but they do have fantastic manufacturing capabilities, and own the makers of the electronic components that go into their products.  They just seem to be totally mismanaged, and over the years you can dig a deep hole.