Damion Chaplin
06-03-2006, 05:30 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/How+Sony+failed+to+Connect%2C+again/2100-1027-6078659.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e433' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/How+Sony+failed+to+Connect%2C+again/2100-1027-6078659.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e433</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Early in 2005, more than a dozen Sony employees from the company's consumer electronics divisions gathered for an unusual meeting in the tiny Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters of digital media start-up Kinoma. Kinoma Chief Executive Peter Hoddie, an Apple Computer alumnus, had been put in charge of high-profile Sony software development, including the Connect digital music project. For a company historically averse to using outside technology, this was a significant step... Programmers went to work on the project, intended to be Sony's answer to Apple's iTunes. But the tone had been set for a dysfunctional mix of politics, programming and pique that would prove deeply destructive to Sony's digital music ambitions. Fourteen months later, a disastrous product launch doomed Sony's latest attempt to catch Apple."</i><br /><br />John Borland gives us a facinating look at Connect, Sony's would-be competiter to iTunes. Traditionally, Sony prefers not to contract out to other software developers, instead trying to develop everything in-house. This time though, in an effort to catch up to Apple, they partnered with Palo Alto-based Kinoma, and it was all downhill from there. A very interesting read, and a great insight as to why Sony has failed to step up to the plate where digital music content is concerned.