F55: Sony's Response to Red

Personally I feel that the US patent system is kind of rotten. It needs to change, else people will lose faith on patents.

I suspect RED filing a patent case against Sony is to win the PR war and get sympathy of a david vs goliath battle. Perception is more important than facts as people buy based on perception. If people perceive RED to be an under dog fighting a war against a large company, then RED can gain sympathy. I have seen a lot of that during my strategy consulting days. I have also seen cases of disruption of a competitor's product by sabotaging its supply chain. Remember that in this corporate warfare, there is often no ethical dimension. As users, it would be advisable to watch from the sides and not get into this by arguing against each other.

Any idea who supplies Sensor and other important components to RED?
 
LeavingTheCandy said:
Green,
While Son'y net income is negative in 2012 (who's isn't, except Apple), Sony has a Balance Sheet (total assets) that would make Jannard's head spin. Not even close to being in the same galaxy.
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You didn't say balance sheet, you said cash on hand, and the cash on hand has shrunk to a (still huge but comparatively tiny) $8 billion. And at the pace they've been losing money, that won't last much longer. They've been losing for four consecutive years, and this last quarter they lost another $115 million (which wasn't as bad as expected, which is good for them, even though it's still a big loss). Their fiscal year ends at the end of this month, so we won't know the whole picture until then. They're claiming a return to profitability for the year is possible. We'll see.

This isn't the Sony you and I grew up with, the huge international behemoth. Sony's market value has shrunk by 90% just in the last decade. Apple could buy the whole Sony company with the loose change in their couch cushions. Apple's got $137 billion in cash, and Sony's total market capitalization is only $15 billion; Apple could almost buy Sony outright with the interest it earns on its cash in the bank (assuming, of course, that Apple could get 11% return on its cash).

They're still a big player, obviously, but nothing like what they used to be.
 
Barry_Green said:
You didn't say balance sheet, you said cash on hand, and the cash on hand has shrunk to a (still huge but comparatively tiny) $8 billion. And at the pace they've been losing money, that won't last much longer. They've been losing for four consecutive years, and this last quarter they lost another $115 million (which wasn't as bad as expected, which is good for them, even though it's still a big loss). Their fiscal year ends at the end of this month, so we won't know the whole picture until then. They're claiming a return to profitability for the year is possible. We'll see.

This isn't the Sony you and I grew up with, the huge international behemoth. Sony's market value has shrunk by 90% just in the last decade. Apple could buy the whole Sony company with the loose change in their couch cushions. Apple's got $137 billion in cash, and Sony's total market capitalization is only $15 billion; Apple could almost buy Sony outright with the interest it earns on its cash in the bank (assuming, of course, that Apple could get 11% return on its cash).

They're still a big player, obviously, but nothing like what they used to be.
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My understanding, and Barry you might know, is that the Sony Professional Camera division is not where they've been losing money.
 
Duke M. said:
My understanding, and Barry you might know, is that the Sony Professional Camera division is not where they've been losing money.
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TVs is where they're really losing money, they've been losing their shirts in the TV business for the last 9 years.
As for pro camcorders, I don't think they break it down that far. But it's a tiny portion of their business. For example, on their annual report, "Professional Solutions" (which is where I'm guessing the pro camcorder division would fit in, along with probably a hundred other things) accounts for 29% of 50% of their sales. Or, put more intelligibly, 15%. So even if they were hemorrhaging money through the pro division, it still wouldn't account for THAT MUCH of the overall loss.

From what I can tell, the Annual Report 2012 shows a total loss of about 253.55 billion yen. Of that total, almost 230 billion was from consumer products. The "Professional, Device, and Solutions" sector was the other big loser, but only 20.2 billion yen. (Only... hah! I guess it's "only" in comparison to how bad the consumer products sector's loss was.) And "Other" accounted for the remaining 3.5 billion yen loss. Interestingly, there are sections of Sony that are profitable -- movies, music, financial services, and mobile communications all showed a profit. But consumer products and pro products were the two biggest losers. And they spelled out that one particularly bad performing sector in their "pro products" division was "components" (presuming electrical components?)

How much of that pro division is camcorders? I don't know, they don't break it down that far. Camcorders might have been the one thing preventing the loss from being wider, maybe; or they could have contributed to the loss, there's no way to tell from the annual report I found online.
 
My understanding is that it's consumer tvs that really have killed Sony. Korean firms like LG and Samsung have really kicked their butts there.
 
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Genuinely hoping that Sony wins this and gives RED a proper shafting in return. Jim and Co are just a bunch of bullying jackasses and that's the primary reason I will never invest in RED.
 
I own a Sony FS100 and a Red Scarlet. Almost sold the Fs100 for to get a BT Red One and I'm so glad I didn't. The Fs100 is very well engineered, rock solid, perfect for a small crew, and runs on one battery for almost six hours!
I also just bought a Sony DSLR - the A57... Wow. The number of innovations in this cheap little camera blew me away. Real time video autofocus that works darn well using existing Sony and Minolta lenses.
Sony is still rockin' it in imaging devices. Where they're really weak is a lot of the other consumer junk they sell. My Experia Tablet S blows! So does my Viao laptop. Sony should get out of computing devices and save themselves. My 2c.
 
Sony is such an interesting company. They seem to outright dominate individual sectors of consumer and professional electronics until someone comes along and just changes the game up so much that they can't catch up. Apple w/ iPods/ computer tech / phones; Samsung & LG w/ TV's / LCD's, Phones etc.

Imaging seems to be the last bastion in terms a division where they seem to have an answer in every single corner of the market where competition can be found. They're fighting both tooth and nail for this market in consumer and professional areas. They've lived through this numerous times and they've learned their lesson... there's no way there gonna lose imaging as well (in their minds). It's taken them WAY to long to have this sense of urgency and fighting mentality when it comes to business they usually excel at.

Can't say that I'm not impressed... I don't exactly have an affinity for any Sony imaging products... but they really do seem like a company on the edge.. pulling out all the stops. There's no way anybody can say they aren't fighting for their lives with so many new and innovative imaging products.
 
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