There are a couple of interesting news about the Sony sensor and camera relocation. First, the flooded factory in Ayutthaya (Thailand) will be closed until January 2012. (Source: AP).
To solve the production problem Sony moved the sensor production to its Japanese semiconductor factory in Kumamoto, Kyushu island. Another factory in Chonburi (Thailand) will than assemble the Sony NEX-5/C3/7 and A77/A65. Sony should soon release a press information to communicate the new NEX-7 A77 availability info (Via Photoscala). I hope there will be Stocks of cameras ready for the Christmas sales!
One more news: Image Sensor World reports that “Sony will boost its image sensor production capacity by 50 percent within two to three years starting next spring.“
20 Responses
Hooray!
I’ll be buying my Nex-7 by clicking on your links man!
hmm… Kumamoto oysters, Kumamoto sensors. Yum either way 🙂
(yes, I know the oysters are also farmed in North America, and those are good too)
official word from sony will be confident for consumer
It’s all looking a bit more cheery for those of us who are dedicated Sony fans! Hope to have my NEX-7 well b4 Christmas.
Well done Sony!
how about Nikon? Still underwater?
Sony must be doing well with it’s new releases—highly motivated to re-establish production!
I’m looking forward to working with the NEX-7!
What the hell, Sony just released 1.03 for A77 on the US site… This better not be the firmware 1.04 update….. or I am going to be pissed…
This article has nothing to do with 1.04 but why will 1.04 be a problem for you ? Just update yours.
You misunderstand. “wth” is saying that he/she hopes that 1.03 on the US site isn’t the rumoured release of new firmware this week.
Did you check the release date of the update?
My sony site doesn’t show any new updates.
The US site didn’t have 1.03 up on their download page for the SLT-A77V. I was checking hourly.
If this is the awaited update… I am going to cry.
Not so rozy at all. Sony is losing between 300 and 400 milion USD due to the flooding. Steerting the production quickly is great for consumers, but if it is just to save someone’s face, it is unnecessarily costly. When this was the only one of many plants that made TV sets, having it in an area of potential flooding was OK. But being the only plant to make expensive cameras, which needed quick introduction to the market, proved to be a near fatal mistake. Some heads shold roll, or at least one – at the top. Sony has been unprofitable for 4 years. It keeps on producing more models and lines of cameras, but its market share is nothing spectacular. It puts Zeiss label lenses on its top models, thus helps promote Zeiss and Nokia, which is using the Zeiss label on its cell phones.
The value of the Sony label is going steadily down. We all know how bad marketing Sony has in the US. Look at CamcorderInfo, the main test site for camcorders. Superior Sony camcorders don’t get high marks.
NEX-VG10 camcorder introduction was a disaster. VG20 will not do much better. Digital cinema cameras were at one time Sony’s domain. Now Sony is strugling against Canon, Red, Panasonic. Bad product management. Bad marketing. 2 lines on NEX cameras. Nex3 and 5 take different accessories than NEX7. Nex 3 and 5 should have used smaller sensors.
The flange distance is very short on NEX. The lens exit pupil has to be large for even fame ilumination, therefore Sony needs to have fast WA lenses. The 16 mm pancake it introduced can’t have decent corner performance.
>Nex 3 and 5 should have used smaller sensors.
They should have not. One of advantages or mirrorless design that, unlike SLRs (where making cropped lenses while keeping backfocus clearance same has very few benefits) lenses covering smaller image circle can be designed as efficiently as if camera had smaller sensor. Sensor are getting cheaper these days – Panasonic often puts sensors larger than lenses produce (e.g. “multiformat” on GH line, which could be called crop 1.9 as well)
>The flange distance is very short on NEX.
It is not an optical quantity… In the worst case, you get extra mm of lens barrel – it does not affect lens quality.
>The lens exit pupil has to be large for even fame ilumination
You clearly misunderstand what exit pupil is.
+1
The biggest problem with Sony is that their brand is becoming worth less and less every day.
On the other hand a lowly brand a few years ago like South Korea’s Samsung is now becoming an entertainment powerhouse.
Watch this bet, Samsung in the next five years will become the new “Sony”.
Just compare Sony’s presence in Android devices with Samsung. Who has the giant share of the market and whose phones and tablets are the Flagship models? Sony? No. Samsung.
Samsung is very much a vertically integrated company just like Sony used to be. But now Sony can’t compete and is forced to outsource a lot of its technology and manufacturing to others, especially for Televisions and flat panels.
One of the few competitive areas left for Sony is in their image sensor design and fabrication as well as in the high end Digital Cinema market although that is really a niche product.
Sony better wake up if it doesn’t want to end up like Kodak.
They *must* raise the value of their brand. They need to become the Asian “Apple”. They must raise quality control / reliability and they *must* become the top brand for Android cellphones/PMPs, Tablets and flat screen Televisions if they want their brand to remain a much desired item in the global market going into the next decade. Otherwise they will lose their pricing power and become just another Asian manufacturer competing purely on price with the no-names from China.
To leave Thailand with floods and to go to Japan with earthquakes? Sony is going just between a rock and a hard place, is there the only choice between the devil and the deep blue sea? So many people writing here and there that “Sony wanna save it’s face” but Sony will get bad face while leaving the Thai workers jobless and Thailand’s economy generally in time of need. Sony is saving it’s face just for such narrow-minded impatient and intolerant consumers who always expect the 100% effort and do not agree with any mistake or any natural catastrophe. well, probably it pays off to save the face for such folks…
Sony cares for her profits rather for consumers, and even less for workers. That’s capitalism. As for features of NEXes that have been deliberately downgraded, video recording at reduced resolution at nex 3&3c, reduced iso range, incompatability with 3rd party flashes and batteries
Just checked with SONY in Hunary. They told, they got 10(!!!!) pieces for the whole country a couple of days ago, all sold in 2 days. Quite of few folks standing in the queque, waiting for the next batch to arrive, which is expected in January only, and also just a few pieces. Maybe something will show up in December as well, but not more than 5 kits with the new lens. For the whole country. Well I know the situation, but I still find it ridiculous. OK, it’s more like frustrating, ’cause my good old KM7d is giving in after so many years of service – and I have been waiting for this camera for a year now.
Are you talking about the NEX 7 or the A77?
Are you speaking about NEX7 ?