Sony is Dusting Off the Walkman

Sony is dusting off the name "Walkman" to competestore. Apple's iTunes was the first Internet music
with Apple's iPod. The Japanese are building on theirstore offered large-scale legal downloads of MP3 files.
own music experience to capitalize on the popularitySony won't give us any figures about their sales and
of the smaller MP3 player.market share. Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) has no
In the eighties and nineties the Sony Walkmans andproblem with figures. Perhaps the major reason for
Discmans were a part of everyday life. But thesethis is how good they are. Apple claims about half a
days the MP3 player has market dominance and thebillion downloads in a heavily growing market.
Japanese company has faded. Apple and its iPod isThe iTunes store is heavily focused on its
now number one.cooperation with the iPod. This player is definitely the
Just last week both companies introduced new MP3market leader among the more expensive MP3
players which will be in direct competition with eachplayers which have their own hard disk. In the
other. Sony introduced two players under the namecheaper segment, MP3 players with the so called
"The New Walkman", while Apple released the iPodflash memory, the leaders are Creative, LG and
Nano.iRiver. The iPod Shuffle with its flash memory couldn't
Sony is using the name "Walkman" in the hope thatdo much about that. The negative sentiment about
26 years after the first introduction of the famousthe shuffle was mainly due to its lack of an LCD
cassette player that name still has competitive value.screen and relatively high price.
However, we must conclude that however greatWith the iPod Nano Steve Jobs' Apple has a twofold
Sony's past accomplishments they have missed thechallenge on its hands. Firstly there is the
boat in the MP3 revolution in a major way. The mainabove-mentioned competition with Sony. Secondly,
cause for Sony's failure is their stubborn refusal tothe new Apple player has a storage space of 4Gb of
give up the Attrac3 music format. While the wholeflash memory and no hard disk.
world was exchanging MP3 files it was only last yearThe iPod Nano is the successor to the iPod Mini.
that Sony introduced players that can handle thisApple is constantly reducing the physical size and the
format.prize of their players. Their strategy seems to be to
By that time Apple was just releasing its seventhconcentrate on iTunes as their major profit producer.
generation of iPod-type players.There is an interesting time ahead of us -- we will
Sony now markets the NWA-1000 and NWA-3000.see heavy competition between Apple and Sony
These music players can directly communicate withboth in the interconnected markets of the MP3
the Sony music store "Connect". It is also possible toplayers and their respective music stores.
copy files from the computer directly to the players.Who will win? I don't know, but one thing I do know
Sony is well known for their activity in the music andis that Apple was almost broke at the end of the
film business. They must use their position in this fieldlast century. It has been under the leadership of
to regain market share and prestige in thisSteve Jobs that Apple made an almost miraculous
interconnected industry. Interconnected because itcomeback as a major player on the global market of
seems that it is both Sony's and Apple's strategy tomini-electronics.
heavily interconnect music player, software and music