Sony 'needs more evidence' before making tablet

From Bloomberg:

Sony Corp. is considering developing a tablet-style computer that would compete with Apple Inc.'s iPad, though it wants more evidence consumers will buy them...

So, the company whose most innovative and interesting products are niche ultramobile computers, whose most hyped product of the year is a $200 alarm clock, claims it isn't making an iPad competitor because the market might not exist.

• [Anonymous]

  “How about just having a device that lets you comfortably read or surf the web while standing up? Anybody who commutes via mass transit probably wanted something like that at one time or another.”
  Easy, it’s called a cellphone with Mini Opera and a data contract. You may own one already.

• [Anonymous]

  I’m not a fan of the ipad, and I’m not even sure I’d want a tablet of any variety (I certainly don’t need one).

  However, I asked a guy at work to show me his ipad and he gave a demonstration which had the middle age women in the office literally clapping and declaring that they want one.

  There is definitely a market for tablets. Its just not me.

• [Jeff C]

  sony’s latest firmware for the ps3 runs a full hardware check to look for mods before completing the installation. if they’d told me that before i bricked my ps3 with a dead blu-ray deck i’d probably seriously consider a sony tablet. i just can’t take the chance of turning this theoretical tablet into a coaster because i lost the original stylus.

• [Anonymous]

  Yes, yes, well done you childish macolytes:) Not you Rob, keep up the good work.

  Seriously though, you guys are looking at the pointy bit of the tablet market iceberg that’s above the waterline. How many tablets have come and gone (or are yet to be released) that simply didn’t cut it?

  Granted, many were running a flavour of Windows or PalmOS or god knows what else, certainly enough to bog or bug the device into uselessness… but Sony is within their rights to ask “is it worth competing in this arms race?” or more likely “will it blend?”

• [Yaruki Zero]

  Having watched the news surrounding two iterations of the PlayStation pretty closely, I’ve come to the conclusion that Sony’s executives just have no damn idea what to say in public, and their words shouldn’t be taken as an indication of… well, anything.

• [Anonymous]

  The Market for tablets that is waiting to explode is the medical field. There is a federal mandate that medical professionals who want to qualify for medicare reimbursement(read everyone) has to have electronic medical records. Doctors have to move from room to room and Laptops are just to clumsy for this. No one puts a laptop on their lap, they move it from desk to desk. Doctors don’t have the counter space for a desk in every patient room. Doctors need usable tablets and so do nurses. I have been waiting for a tablet with high end parts for some time now. The IPad is a fun toy but it is so busy looking good that apple nevers tries to apeal to people who want to get actual work done with a tablet.

• [Psywiped]

  I think that Sony is starting to make a comeback i just got a small Sony guncam that takes SDHC cards and my PRS-600 take SDHC as well.

• [graphicsman]

  as I write this on my new HP touch smart tablet, I think back to how l waited so long for the MS Courier. I’m glad to be supporting a company who isn’t hiding behind a “what if the customer isn’t out there?” stance.

• [RedShirt77]

  Oh Sony, always 4 years late and %100 more expensive.

  I have a ps3 and a PSP and I love them both, I just buy so few new games for them that I am sure sony actually still loses money on me.

• [Roy Trumbull]

  The dirty little secret about Japan Inc. is that all the fab is contracted out. Fab ability becomes the choke point. With heavy denials all around a number of pro tape products built before 2000 all failed from capacitors whose hour/temperature rating was way too low. Talk about a smoking gun.
  Both Korea and Taiwan smoke when it comes to fab.

• [SteveNZ]

  Let’s not be so harsh on Sony — why, only last month Microsoft was taking pretty much the same position:

  “Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, has no plans to make a version of its Office suite of programs to run on Apple Inc.’s iPad, said Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s business division.”

  That’s from Businessweek for April 1, and it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.

  Sony isn’t the same company that cleaned up with the Walkman and Trinitron TVs, and Microsoft isn’t the same company that made a fortune selling MS BASIC for every platform in sight and then snatched the PC operating system business away from CPM in the blink of an eye.

  Both Sony and Microsoft have lost their old mojo and are slipping into irrelevance. I expect both will continue to exist in some form, just as IBM is still here and damn big too — but who cares?

• [Xenu]

  To be fair, they also make an absurdly expensive gaming console with a chip nobody knows how to program.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  What’s the bet on how quickly Apple sold more iPads than Sony sold Vaio UXs (It’s last tablety computer) in its entire lifetime as a product?

• [Snig]

  Actually, when I think “Sony”, I still think “rootkit”.

• [Brainspore]

  Is that why Sony decided to wait until Fall 2010 to release their Wii-style game controller?

• [Anonymous]

  “Hmmm, should I breathe today?” – Sony, killing itself with stupidity. (Opinion)

  Sony’s job is to make the next gen iPad, something people will prefer over Apple’s offerings. The idea they are skeptical about tablets is breathtakingly insane.

  The goal for them should not be making a tablet device, but to make a tablet device that innovates beyond a giant iPhone.

  OR

  They are caught completely with their pants down for not already working on internal projects with consumer tablets, thus making it much harder to release a tablet that can compete with the iPad (vs a sub-par tablet) when so many other companies are on the ball. Pants down moment? Glen Beck will decide.

• [AirPillo]

  Watching Sony’s decision-making isn’t for the squeamish. Slow-mo seppuku.

• [mellowknees]

  Based upon my interactions with a particular division of Sony (Sony Online Entertainment) and their amazing ability to screw up anything that works well for end users, I’m going to venture a guess that they’re not always great at deciding what will make them more money.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  The really sad part is that the aforementioned $200 alarm clock runs linux, runs chumby apps. has a touchscreen, and has dimensions close to that of a handheld tablet. If it had a battery and was an inch thinner, it’d *easily* be the most credible competitor to it.

• [Rajio]

  considering how long it took them to make an mp3 player that actually played mp3s, is this suprising at all? sony is a shadow of what it once was. the brand is more or less in the garbage. all branches of the brand.

• [Bloodboiler]

  Just because there is a market for being Apple’s bitch, doesn’t mean that there is market for tablet computers.

  Sony has had at least one tablet and a few ebook readers like a decade now. Nobody just noticed since, unlike Apple, Sony screws over it’s customers without making them like it and beg for more.

  • [Dewi Morgan]

    Beautifully put, Bloodboiler. Thanks for saying what I wanted to say, much better than I could have.

    There is a market for ipads. That does not translate into a market for tablets. The ipad hype is hopefully going to build the market, by creating some killer apps.

    But… has anyone actually come up with a use for a tablet computer yet? If you have one, then other than as a coffee mat, what do you use yours for? What, to you, is the “killer app”?

    • [Brainspore]

      How about just having a device that lets you comfortably read or surf the web while standing up? Anybody who commutes via mass transit probably wanted something like that at one time or another.

      Me, I’d just like a really solid digital sketchpad. Unfortunately current iPads don’t fit the bill.

      • [Dewi Morgan]

        I don’t really think that “standing up” is the way the majority of people who bought an ipad intend to use it. Even if it were, as others have commented, being able to stand up and use it, but only with two hands so you fall over in the train anyway, is not a killer app for anyone with a smartphone who can use it one-handed.

        So far the only real “killer” feature I’ve heard about it is that it has way better battery life than most laptops (though whether it has significantly better life than a laptop with such a small screen, I don’t know).

      • [peterbruells]

        That’s easy. We call it an iPhone. Well, actually any current Smartphone will probably do.

        If you use something while standing, it musn’t be too heavy. There are two ways to get there: Make a powerful and fast TFT/LCD device smaller or use E-Ink, which is slow.

        • [Brainspore]

          @Peterbruells & Anon #22:

          If a smartphone fits that need for you then I say more power to you, but the thought of reading from a screen that small for more than a few minutes at a time makes me want to weep. There’s a reason that most books and magazines aren’t small enough to fit in your back pocket.