How Steve Jobs 'out-Japanned' Japan or out-Sony'ed Sony

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jan 29, 2011, 5:21 AM UTC

iujyhgftrgh wrote: post #12

WalterBright wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an early Minidisk player (still have it), and you could record with it using ordinary line in RCA jacks. A microphone was not necessary. As a replacement for a cassette deck, it beat the pants off of it. Sadly, the copy protection on the disks (it wouldn't even let you do a bit copy of your own disk recordings) killed it.

Sorry I meant line in - the point was that you had to go the analog route because they wanted to restrict your use for their studio's sake. If Sony had made a cheap PC drive that took minidisk it would have been as popular as floppies and been a real selling point for their PCs.

I agree. It's a sad case of what-might-have-been.

Post by fbailey » Sat, Jan 29, 2011, 9:52 AM UTC

glhaynes wrote: post #14

iujyhgftrgh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony of the late 70s early 80s was different. You don't remember how bad everyone else's industrial design and build quality was compared to Sony - it was like Audi or BMW in a world of Buicks.

I feel like Sony hardware has almost always been really good and, for the most part, still is today. Sony software though... not so much. Which worked fine for decades where their products didn't include any software, but it puts them in a really bad place in a world where software quality has become at least as important as hardware quality. I don't know what I'd do if I were in charge of Sony, though - you can't ju…

yes - the software is the most horrible code you can get - I bought the most expensive notebook Sony has and the only way to make it usable is to deinstall everything from Sony, I bought a Sony reader - the Reader Software is the most horrible rubbish... I bought a Sony camera ... it's unbelievable - but I think it shows what makes Apple different - they do both. There are not many companies who manage to be good at software and hardware. Maybe there is some startup advice in this: Don't try to be a software and hardware company. You double your complexity.

Re: How Steve Jobs 'out-Japanned' Japan or out-Sony'ed Sony

Re: How Steve Jobs 'out-Japanned' Japan or out-Sony'ed Sony