I guess you already read the news on your daily magazine. Sony announced the worst loss ever, ¥520 billion for the past financial year. Converted this means a 6,4 Dollar or 4,9 Euro billion loss. Sony will cut 10,000 jobs to bring Sony back to profit within March 2012. There are many reasons for the bad results listed by NYT:
1) additional (unexpected) tax expense
2) heavy losses in its television business
3) strong yen
4) natural disasters in Japan and overseas.
The digital camera market is just a small part of Sony’s business and currently doing pretty decent thanks to the A77 and NEX-7. The problem is Sony has lost many battles like the music war with Apple and the TV war with Samsung. When I talk with my sources they more or less agree that Sony is quite slow and too heavy when it comes to take action. Probably the company has a to complex structure that leads to waste time and resources. That doesn’t necessary mean that you have to cut jobs! What matters more is to have a good management and clear and easy communication-action structure within the company.
Sorry if I repeat myself again but they lost so much money with their slow camera and lens release! The [shoplink 8454]NEX-7[/shoplink] and [shoplink 8450]Zeiss 24mm[/shoplink] and [shoplink 8448]50mm[/shoplink] are selling well but Sony can’t keep up with the production. Plus they are loosing money every day by not releasing new NEX lenses. Cutting jobs will not help if your product strategy…”sucks“?
I hope the latest rumors I am getting about the next FF camera are a good sign that Sony may anticipate the FF announcement. About time!
52 Responses
I’d sell my m4/3 gear *today* and buy a NEX-7 if they would release a decent ultrawide zoom (something like the Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 or Canon/Nikon 16-35mm f/2.8) and a fast (f/2.8) 70-200mm equivalent zoom. I checked out the camera at a Sony Store and it’s beautiful, with awesome controls and a terrific EVF, but c’mon Sony, where are the lenses?!?
only a stupid would buy into the sony alpha system.
hell why would somebody?
it´s inferior. i can´t even get support when i go on a safari.
sony has no support systems. it´s for people who don´t have a clue and want to buy a cheap “dslr”.
and the nex system…. well maybe a better choice.. but it´s ugly as hell and has only a limited lens choice.
I’m sure many at Sony are feeling just as much frustration as you, Andrea. They finally have some really popular products NEX-5n and NEX-7, etc., but they just can’t make them fast enough. Opportunity loss stings. Still, as you yourself have noted, some of the announcements have been delayed due to the earthquake and the Thai floods. Hopefully the restructuring cuts result in a leaner and more agile Sony which can better respond to market needs and change direction to make the most of its most promising offerings.
Which is why they took their only FF cameras from the shelves. Heaven forbid I may need to buy a second a900, they could make some profits!
I’m just one guy and not that big of a photographer but I am a long time A-Mount shooter and had both plans and money to purchase one to two lenses each year since 2009 with I last updated bodies and purchased my last Sony full-frame.
My Minolta stuff is old (so I’m I) and two of my newer Zeiss lenses need repair or replacement, but to my point…
I would have liked to spent the money with Sony but Sony just hasn’t released anything I need or even want and why would I replace my old Minolta 35/f1.4 with a Sony lenses that is just about as old just with a Sony name on it (rebadged).
Lenses I would have purchased in a heartbeat:
35/f1.4 Zeiss, 50/f1.4 Zeiss, 100/f2.8 Zeiss macro, 16-24/f2.8 Zeiss
Lenses I own and would have updated in a heartbeat:
24-70/f2.8 Zeiss, 70-200/f2.8 G, 85/f1.4 Zeiss
Sony has lost about $8,000 it could have got from me so far, but I’m still hopful
or maybe I move one-last-time back to Nikon
I moved from Nikon to Minolta in 1986 with the Maxumin 9000 with AF came to market 🙂
Sony does sell a Sony Zeiss 16-35 f2.8 you know? I doubt seriously they will be releasing a 16-24 f2.8 anytime soon.
I know, I own one…
If Sony did make a 16-24 I was just saying that I would buy it, as I have too much coverage at 35mm and think a 16-24 would be better.
I have used the Nikon before and think is very nice.
Do I see any of this happening?
not really
I’m guessing you mean 14-24? I’d rather have that than my 17-35, too.
Hi Steve, I was just a kid when you switched to Minolta. I am gonna get a lot of hate for this, but move back, I waited on Sony for a while, finally deciding to switch to Nikon. I think Sony stuff feels right in your hand, I felt things were made for me, that’s what companies need clients to feel. All that is great, but Sony has been targeting other photo market, and they’ve done so great that it doesn’t look like they’re gonna step it up on SLT’s or as it has been stated here, neither with DSLR. While the other companies have great products available now, for all budgets too. That’s how I feel, that’s what I did and that’s what I recommend. Not Nikon, not Canon, but the company you feel is doing what you need. I still use Sony 24 inch desktop, and the tablet is pretty nice too. But not photo stuff anymore. And then we get, “wait on A99”, why? It should be companies waiting on us to decide to buy their products, not the other way. Greetings,
LP.
So what brought you here, if you’re not waiting for or interested in Sony photographic stuff? Honest now. 😉
What brings me back first is that I enjoy reading about Sony brand, I owned Alpha and own a lot of Sony stuff, and also as long as I remember this thing is open… I am not trashing Sony, I am stating the facts and how I feel too.
Sony defender even when its sunk at the bottom of the ocean.
Pathetic. Get a life moron.
Need a hug or a lollypop? 😉
5)Better glasses and new FF body still yet to come after two big boys have flooded the market with their brand-new big guns for quite some time
>_<
I hope the next Nex lens is a 35mm 1.8 OSS. That would be an incredibly useful focal length for most people.
“Mr. Kato said that any job cuts would include positions from a liquid crystal display unit and small chemical business, which are being spun off from Sony. But the Nikkei business daily, which first reported the larger job-cut figure, said that jobs were likely to go from Sony’s money-losing TV business. ”
Nothing to do with cameras.
10,000 minimum wage jobs or 1 executive who makes $5 Million in salary and bonus that can’t make decisions quick enough or has the lack of vision to execute and compete with Apple and Samsung. yeah. Makes sense. Get rid of the workers. That will help the big picture.
10,000 people’s ongoing salary and benefits dwarfs 5 million USD. So yeah, it makes perfect sense. May I suggest a calculator? 😉
You are talking about the old CEO Howard Stringer. He was practically useless. New CEO Kazuo Hirai is really good. He is the one that built PlayStation’s success.
I agree a calculator is in order… also I’m rather confident that the 10,000 job losses will include managers as well as other higher end staff and not just ‘minimum wage’ employees.
Both a standard fast prime and wide angle zoom are on the lens roadmap for 2012.
I am a serious hobby landscape photographer, and have been lurking for a long time. I shoot from a tripod, and I make big prints (16×20). I am ready to make the jump from medium format film to digital. Once I buy into a system, I will stick with that system for a long time. I am attracted to Sony for the high quality sensors and the potential to use Zeiss lenses.
I would already have a Nex-7 except for the lack of high quality glass. Why buy a good camera if you can’t get a close-to-complete line-up of equally good glass?
Consequently, I wait on the sidelines to see what lenses Sony/Zeiss will produce. I wait, and I wait, and I wait. Meanwhile, Canon and Nikon continue to upgrade their cameras. That Nikon D800 looks really really good, and it is available *now* with good lenses.
I am not sure why I continue to wait for Sony . . .
–shinbone
its only ZEISS GLASS they aren’t always ZEISS DESIGNS. Cosina zeiss lenses can totally suck.
Bold move to cut jobs rather then release awaited products and earn money!
Regarding the nex 7 > only two performing lenses are available.
Zeiss 24 f1.8 + Sony 50 f1.8 = even less than 3 lenses like fuji x-pro1.
Does anyone here even know a thing about business. Its like arm chair quarter back heaven in this place. They can’t release it if it not DONE. What you think you just sit down one day and go OH LETS MAKES THE LENSES. takes Engineering. Also what if those 10,000 people are the people that are inhibiting the communications structure and since they are fixing it they just don’t need them. Why did you buy into a system that didn’t already have what you needed to begin with? THAT NUTS.
It would help if people read the story too. I don’t see what the LCD/TV and Chemical division job losses have got to do with cameras and lenses.
They also thought that you could magic production facilities out of thin air after a flood and expected Sony to be churning out bodies and lenses. I bet that Sony and others are STILL trying to recover full production.
People here couldn’t run a fucking piss-up in a brewery, never mind run a business.
Exactly.
How is the Nikon D800 sales figures? 🙂
Sony should just hire the accountants from Olympus to cook the books and all would be golden.
Well maybe for 20 years.
😉
Maybe the financial “expertise” is what attracted Sony to partner with Olympus. 😉
There so much confusion among fanboys over sales. I own both Sony and Nikon and not a fanboy of either one. It’s not sales that Sony is lacking. It’s profitable sales. History shows the focused company tend to be the more profitable company. I’m sure Sony has the SLT A61, A62, A63, A58, A58F, A79, etc all ready to go to the market. This is absolutely ludicrous. Go to a store and try to buy a Sony camcorder or TV. There are about 30 models of each. WTF? It’s like Sony marketing is going through the motion to justify their jobs. This topic of focus has come up before when Sony execs were asked why they don’t focus like Apple. Sony answer was that they were not that kind of company. So, Apple is the kind of company making record profits while Sony is the kind of company with record losses. Hmm… I want to see the old Sony again, not this bastardized conglomeration.
Sony is exceptionally good at sensors and they have a hit on their hands in the NEX system. They have close to zero chance of besting Canikon in SLRs. They cannot stop the smartphone onslaught against P&S. Sony, creative destruction, look it up and think about it!
It’s not Sony vs Canikon. It’s Sony and Nikon vs Canon.
My biggest problems with Sony in the last six years have been 1) the very cautious corporate strategy, especially after the financial collapse in 2008, and 2) the failure to put an emphasis on imaging. Howard Stringer spearheaded a much-needed effort to restructure the corporation to break down the barriers between the divisions, to bring synergy to Sony’s efforts. He put Hirai in a position to prove himself, and Hirai did so by turning the Playstation division around, Stringer will now be chairman, while Hirai takes over as CEO. I expect a much more aggressive and focused corporate strategy. Hirai has already signaled two things that we ought to be very happy about: that imaging, gaming, and mobile will be the three areas of focus in the consumer division, and that Sony will move to get products in those areas to market faster.
Andrea has suggested that he is hearing reports of this sea change in his conversations with Sony insiders. We’ll soon see whether they will materialize.
Its like Kodak or other super-big companies. They grow slow and stupid, cause theres no real “ruler” or “king” that would say “And thats what we will do now!”. Plus bigger company is, more cowardly they behave..
Only exception was Apple, for obvious reasons.
Samsung is better in lot of things than Sony, especially when it comes to producing something sensible. On other hand, their marketing is near non existant, thats why they dont sell too much NX cameras (even tho they are very good and very thought out as system).
sony will not make alpha cameras in 3 years… wanna bet?
nonsense
From what I read, both Apple and Sharp will be releasing super HD tvs in the Fall (apple likely at retina resolution, which is a VERY noticeable improvement in my wife’s ipad 3) and Sharp in 4k (which apparently does an impressive job uprezzing 1080i from the review I read). The 1080p standard will continue to be a path to diminishing returns, and that should be apparent now that even Sony is losing tons of money on tvs and is amalgamating tv operations with a few other manufacturers. Sony needs to get their 4k strategy working and get some product out there – and seemingly have started now that they’ve released a relatively affordable 4k video cam (soon, every decent production will be shot in 4k). Now it’s a matter of getting 4k production into the hands of the public, and the best way to stimulate growth might be to get 4k into dslr-slt cameras (starting with an A99 equivalent).
a few tech nerds will enjoy the 4K sharp upscaling and wait for real content. 🙂
and when will real content come to our homes?
not any time soon.
and samsung and LG are already on the train too.
so i don´t see why sony should succeed with 4k displays when they did not in the past with HD.
4K will not save sony.
and people who have just bought an HD-TV will not buy a new 4K TV in this economy.
like 3D TV it will be a stillborn child.
4K TV´s…. you can put your hope in that…. in about 5 years from now.
i have seen a 4K on 40″ and most people will not even notice that on such a size from a normal viewing distance.
it´s like printing billboards at 600 DPI….
Judging 4k at 40 inches is RIDICULOUS. Doing so, and then being crazy enough to mention it makes me doubt your judgement and intellect.
If you’re too poor to make the switch to 4k, don’t whine to me.
How about this review – 4k by the end of THIS YEAR – not 5 years.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/sharp-4k-tv_TV_review
Why are there so many Canikon trolls… Why do they even care about Sony?
What are they doing on this site?
What on Earth would make so many Canikon Trolls spend their precious “professional” time to make the effort to post on a Sony Rumor site???
Do they feel threatened or something???
I have no idea!!!
Go figure!
Most people on here seems to relate this to Sony not releasing lenses or FF bodies. If I remember correctly intel said in Q4 they lost about 1 billion US on the Thai floods. Sony lost even more. This is what they have to respond to in cutting jobs now but it’s also the reason why you have no lenses or FF bodies. Unrelated to Sony cameras however. As suggested, most cuts will likely be in TV and will not affect camera or lens releases. Not having any factories however, will.
Oh and we are only two months away from the next Thai rain season and people here (the average Somchai and Somying), says the chance of flooding again is 50/50. Nobody trusts the governments ability to manage another disaster. Me, I hope Sony makes some brave decisions and move to China.
I hope this is not the big news…
Another one bites the dust. Sad that it has to come to this, a stubborn upper management is making decisions that hurts the company and who suffers most? The daily grinder.
Told ya, just another slice of the Sony party cake gone, soon nothing will be left.
Arrogant and stubborn company, the management deserve to be fired completely, the daily worker deserves to have a job.
Next is Alpha just you watch. They aren’t making the numbers they want too… and they never will. Not with the keystone cops in charge.
Hi Ryan, Please could you provide your sources that Sony photographic division is not making the numbers they want as well as your source for stubborn and arrogant management?
From what I’ve read and researched I don’t seem to get the same picture you are painting and I’m very interested to see some of the detail to your comments above.
Ryan, you have already made your point that you don’t like Sony in your last hundred posts.
You never told us anything new since that was deemed intelligent enough to warrent further comprehension.
Nobody here that wishes to learn, takes your posts seriously.
Sony is going though some hard times, It doesn’t spell the end of their DSLR division.
In some ways… Thinking of it now, if their imaging department went bust and SonyAlphaRumors closed, I wonder what a hate filled Anti Sony Camera person like you would do?…
That’s right, you would be crying in bed at night, wondering if your existance has any meaning at all.
Naw, most likely they would return back to Canon vs Nikon wars, or start a campaign against Pentax.
Ryan aka MCP likes old Sony cameras (R1, V3, A100 etc.), old Panasonics (L1) and Pentax cameras (K-5).
No more hints will be given. 😉
Owww, Ryan’s one of those people that just blurt out ‘facts’ with no sources, knowledge or research just pure emotion… Sorry Ryan but I never understood why people do that just to stir, as WTH mentioned above others like myself is willing to learn and understand better and if you had facts, details or ‘something’ we could learn from I’m 100% willing to and will be more than happy to but I don’t appreciate what I call ‘girls gossip magazine’ posts to stir the pot with fake, inaccurate and ‘made up’ details/facts, I simply fail to see what you are trying to prove… I agree if you don’t like Sony or their direction move on to another system and enjoy it there is plenty of choice out there and nothing wrong with competing systems, I personally don’t mind Nikon either but that’s my personal choice/preference but I do shoot with Sony camera’s and love them!
Also just to keep you upto speed Sony announced that it will be restructuring the company and has already moved some high end executives around and more changes are to come (I’m also sure some higher end staff might also lose their jobs and it will not be just the ‘lower end’). Sony announced that its 3x core product focuses and have started executing plans as of this month would be for: Digital Imaging, Gaming and the Mobile Market… Note the first one mentioned, it’s part of their core focus so please don’t spread false rumours for the ‘fun’ of it or for attention… If you like doing that as I say join some ‘girl magazine’ forums and you can have a ball… else what I would suggest is enjoy life with a system/company that makes you happy, that’s what I think is important.
“they lost so much money with their slow camera and lens release… Plus they are loosing money every day by not releasing new NEX lenses. Cutting jobs will not help if your product strategy…”sucks“?”
Couldn’t have put it better!
People will buy the Sigma 19mm and 30mm (and any other Sigma future offerings) in preference to “mythical” Sony products. Sony has got to get it’s act together, Sony users will not wait for ever!
Hay Chris, I think we need to be fair I think Sony had one hell of a bad year (or two) in multiple countries with manufacturing, natural disasters and hackers. They have acknowledged the issues and I believe are doing rather well in the recovery process considering… looking at some other industries that had just a single hit in Thailand (yet along the others Sony faced) some of these other companies have still not recovered as well.
Having said that I do believe Sony need to move faster and I believe they are aware of that and is part of their press statement acknowledging that they will be spending more money on R&D, shifting company focus to 3 main markets (first mentioned was “Digital Imaging”) which I think will be a good change for us at Alpharumors. I think once the time has passed for Sony to make the changes which have already started since 1 April (this month), I’m sure it will take some time to make such big changes in such a large company but I think we all need to give them some time as Sony seems to be saying the right things, acknowledged the issues and are trying to address them which I see as a really positive step/direction! Fingers crossed there execution will be good but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt I recon as even during the bad times they have still managed to get some product out, OEM deals happening and some really positive news.
For the 4k doubters out there, looks like Canon will release a 4k DSLR at NAB http://photorumors.com/2012/04/11/canon-to-announce-eos-c500-1d-cameras-and-new-lenses-at-nab-2012/
They’re fairly expensive at $10000 – I can’t see why a person would buy one over the FS 700. It’s a great time for Sony to wade into the market – they can undercut Canon, and also link a camera to a tv sale by offering a discount coupon when one or the other is purchased….. Anybody listening?????