Wouldn’t you like to bump elbows with media moguls and hear from the likes of Eric Schmidt, Biz Stone and James Murdoch? Me too! Alas, Quadrangle’s Foursquare conference is closed to the public and the press. But at least I can tell you whom you won’t be hearing from.
Big, beautiful high-def TVs are so plentiful and so cheap that nearly everyone who wants one has one. So what can TV manufacturers do to goose sales? Add new features and hope consumers clamor for them.
Hence, Sony’s announcement that it’s making a big bet on…3-D TVs. CEO Howard Stringer is using the IFA Technology Show in Berlin to announce that Sony will make 3-D Bravia sets.
And 3-D Vaio laptops. And 3-D PlayStation3s. And 3-D Blu-ray DVD players.
No wonder Howard Stringer couldn’t promise he was “recession-proof” when the Sony CEO spoke at the Consumer Electronics Show last week: Sony is set to record a $1.1 billion loss, according to the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. That’s something the company hasn’t seen since Hollywood producers Jon Peters and Peter Gruber managed to incinerate the company’s P&L in the mid-90s.
The billionaire investor and whole lot of other people are betting that people are willing to spend money to watch stuff in theaters that they could see for free–if its in 3-D. The technology behind that proposition got a real-time test yesterday during the Oklahoma/Florida college championship game.
The Sony boss finds himself in the midst of yet another turnaround effort. Today he gives an industry crowd an update and a promise that things will get better, some day.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer is taking an ax to the electronics giant and will hack away thousands of jobs. Sound familiar? It should: Stringer’s newest cuts, announced last night–8,000 full-time positions, plus 8,000 seasonal and temp workers–sound a lot like the cuts he made in 2005, when he had just taken control of the company.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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