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If I've seen it once, I've seen it a million times. Someone I know is looking to buy a technology product. The person isn't very knowledgeable about the market for that product and either doesn't have the time to research or just doesn't care. What does that person do? They buy a Sony.
So what's the big deal? This is 2005 and "just buying a Sony" doesn't mean what it used to mean. Sony absolutely dominated the consumer technology market in the 80's and early 90's with such products as the Walkman, Discman, camcorders, TVs, etc. As of today, Sony has lost money in its electronics business for the past two years. In the TV market, Sony has fallen behind Samsung, Panasonic, and Sharp.
You probably don't care about Sony's financial situation; you just care about their products. So why aren't their products selling like they used to? Several reasons: In the MP3 player market, Sony is nowhere near the iPod. Sony completely blew any chance of success in the MP3 player market by forcing users to convert all music to its proprietary ATRAC format just to play on its players (they have since changed this). In fact, Sony is notorious for the proprietary nature of its products. Take its digital camera line, for example. They only use Memory Stick media, which no one else uses. This makes the media much more expensive and completely incompatible with any camera you might buy from another manufacturer in the future.
To put it simply, companies such as Panasonic, Toshiba, Samsung, LG, Benq, Dell, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, JVC, Philips, and Pioneer (among others) make excellent high-tech products at often much better prices than Sony. Twenty years ago it may have been worth it to pay more for a Sony. Today there is no reason to do so. In most product categories you can probably find a better product for less money.
Don't get me wrong. Sony doesn't make bad products. You could definitely buy from a worse manufacturer. In fact, Sony makes some of the best high-end products out there. But those high-end products are very high-priced and are reserved for those with deep pockets. For the rest of us, just consider Sony products along with the other big names. You can probably find a better product at a better price.
