Sony cans the Clie
Correspondents in Paris
June 2, 2004
SONY Corp will pull out of all its PDA markets around the world except Japan, to concentrate on wirelessly connected devices that can play movies, games and music.
“Sony is reassessing the direction of the conventional PDA market and Sony will not introduce any new Clie handheld models in the United States and Europe this fall,” the group’s French unit said.
In San Francisco, a Sony spokeswoman told CBS MarketWatch that "Sony continues to view mobile devices as a key pillar to our core business growth strategy.
“We will continue to provide our customers with an environment where they can enjoy movies, games and music on a device that is easy to carry anywhere at the same time.”
She said Sony views wireless communications as an important feature on mobile devices and will continue to develop in this direction, including continued collaboration with Sony Ericsson , its joint venture with Swedish mobile phone maker Ericsson.
“Product development and sales continue for the Japanese market only. Sony is taking this time to examine the conventional PDA business and how it will transition into the future,” she said.
That’s too bad. As a Palm user, the presence of the Clie was a good thing, as before there was the Clie, new products and new feature integration was slow on the Palm platform. Sony pushed them into the 2 release per year cycle. I hope they don’t discontinue the rapid updates now that there isn’t any significant competition.
That’s too bad, I have a two year old Clie sitting in front of me…solid as a rock. The fewer Palm OS devices available, the more pervasice Windows CE (or whatever they are calling it now) will become. Last I checked, the handwriting recognition on these was REALLY bad (of course, that was 2-3 years ago). In addition, they are MUCH more expensive than a comperable PalmOS device.
What would really be sweet is an iPod / Palm / Phone in one. I wanted a Clie with an MP3 player but it didnt have a phone option. So I went Handspring. Then the iPod came along… surely a 5 Gig MP3 player with Palm and phone capabilities isnt too much to ask?
In Business Week, or was it The Economist, I forget which, there was an article about how Sony has gotten so big, it is having difficulty managing itelf.
It went ahead with this aggressive, exclusive Memory Stick technology, which I bought into, and now I wonder if it will phase out that idea soon too. Not because of lack of implementation, but out of management :loco: mistakes. Well, I guess if I keep buying Sony, I won’t have a problem, right?
