Sony Exits U.S. Handheld Market

[Steve]

Sony announces that it will no longer market Clie handhelds in United States, at least for the foreseeable future.

Read about it at http://www.brighthand.com/article/sayonara_clie

[Timothy Rapson]

Hosta La Pasta, Auf Weinerstain, Arrive dirtbag and don't let the Memory Stick hit you on the backside when you leave.

I was happy to pay nearly $500 for a Clie NR70V, but when Sony lied to me and told me that one day I would be able to use a 1 gig memory stick with it, they lost me as a customer. I not only quit buying Sony PDAs, I didn't buy a Sony camera, opting for a Minolta with a standard SD card slot.

Sony charged premium prices for some very nice models and they were making money on them until the memory stick debacle coupled with their cripled CF slot.

I will be happy buying elsewhere from a company that keeps its promises to its customers.

[ballistic]

A few observations:

1. pa1mOne better get an OS6 device to market ASAP to compete with the wave of excellent, low priced PPC's (Dell X30 for example) or Palm OS (PalmSource and pa1mOne) will lose market share at an alarmingly accelerated pace.

2. Sony has just alienated a lot of devoted Clie users in the US (again). I considered buying a PSP at one time, but not anymore. It will be a Tapwave Zodiac2 instead.

3. Hasn't the PDA market been down the last 1-2 years? Why drop out of the US market now with OS6 around the corner? A lot of OS5 Clie users will be looking to upgrade to an OS6 device (myself included) with the potential of an increased demand for new OS6 Clies. If Sony's market share has been lower than everyone else's by a significant margin, was it their own fault due to the CF slot/MSPro/Proprietary sound & display API fiascos, among other questionable moves?

4. Is Sony going to continue to pursue the use of Linux (no licensing fees) as an OS for its portable devices (ie Sharp Zaurus)? They are using is for their NAV AV NAVI.

5. It's going to be a dark day over at Cliesource .

[JackAubrey]

The sad reality of technology-based products is they eventually mature, their sales level out, and R&D stops.

VCRs, analog camcorders and cell phones, tape decks and even NTSC TVs followed this path. The difference is: each of these devices enjoyed success prior to becoming "mature". Sadly PDAs run the risk of becoming "mature" without having gained mass acceptance.

Sony has sales projections that we don't have. They know where the PDA market is headed. They did not feel they could fix it.

Sony's departure is a signal to all other PDA vendors: RE-INVENT or DIE. Producing the same-old tired "information management" device is not working. It just does not sell. How about throwing more CPU cycles and a VGA displays at the problem? --> All you have is faster "information management" - that still won't sell.


Apple did it with the iPod. They re-invented portable music. PDAs missed their chance. PDAs have the opportunity to be THE device that integrates wireless, credit transactions, video, audio and data. Everywhere. All the time.

Can they? Will they? What else can they do?

[JK27]

Wow! I must say that I'm surprised, as the Clie brand seemed to be picking up name recognition (don't know about sales volume, however). Who will fill the void ...

[Omnitron]

Sony kept hitting us with new models much more rapidly than any other Palm PDA manufacturer - PALM included. I don't know whether that was a good idea - it made them their own competitor at times.

I just became a Sony user and advocate last year - This makes me very upset. I was so hoping that there would be an even better UX style unit in the future. Now? Palm's best is a Zire 72. it just isn't the same...

If they are getting out because the see all PDAs as cellphones combo units --- that scares me. I have had a VERY bad experience with cellphones and have avoided them. I don't want or need one, but I do need my PDA. I depend on it. I do not see myself buying a combo unit in ANY way. Is the non-combo PDA doomed to dissappear?

[uwradu]

Gone are the days when just making money was enough. Today not growing means dying. Not just that, but not growing FAST ENOUGH seems to mean dying as well. So basically any "mature" technology eventually will have to be produced in China by children in order to be sold for $39.99 at Wal-Mart with almost-zero margin, since any "real" company MUST be traded publicly and post continual double-digit growth to be taken seriously. Since there's only that many products that afford that kind of luxury, I guess eventually all major companies in the world will be producing Rice Crispies, with anything lesser being left to--you know--China. Who knows, maybe one day Clie's will come free in a box of Rice Crispies.

[imported_welwyngc]

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Nokia has overtaken PalmOne as the world's top seller of mobile computers in the first quarter, as consumers chose smartphones over handheld computers to organize their lives, a survey showed Tuesday

http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/01/tech...reut/index.htm

[imported_Vidge]

The reason I went to Sony after years of Palm was innovation. The reason I left Sony was innovation. But I'm very sad to see Sony leave the US market. I think it will be harmful to the PalmOS to have just one major licensee with PPC having several. Were it not for Sony, Palm may have never gone past the 160x160 screen resolution or put in landscape mode.

Yes, it's a really sad day for Palm OS

[imported_fidodido]

I guess gone are the days of Sony's innovation into the PDA industry. I wonder if we will have to wait, as early on, two or three years more to see an "out-of-the-normal" product from one of the brands that are now at the top of the industry. That was one of the reason a choosed Sony, because of innovation, integration within their products and build quality. I hope Sony at least share their knowdledge with PalmOne or HP, in regards of products innovation.. This is a very sad day for the PDA industry and users.