Sony Co-Prosperity Sphere Plans Defense Against iPhone Invasion

By Rob Beschizza
Sony is, according to electronista, under the impression that all it needs to do to counter the iPhone in Japan is allow MP3 file transfers between walkman-branded Sony Ericsson handsets and non-Sony equipment over local carrier KDDI's network.

If this idea—opening up a platform to a single, arbitrarily-selected industry standard that most users take for granted—is enough to get handset makers sleeping easy at night, then there are two possibilities.

Either (a) Sony still controls portable music in Japan and always will. The iPhone is a flash in the pan that obviously requires only token counter-strategery, or (b) the iPhone has already won the war, because despite being only marginally innovative, it operates in a dimensional plane of otherness that competitor executives are mentally incapable of accessing.

I would love to see a room full of besuited executives debating the revolutionary notion of letting people move MP3 files off the phone. Considering that Sony pissed away its global control of the music-player market by not letting its customers play MP3s at all, perhaps it was a very difficult decision to make.

Regardless, there's only one way to beat the iPhone: make a better device, sell it cheaper, and market it more aggressively. Why do some companies think they can build a future trying to shovel bullshit at a market defined by 18- to 40-year old geeks with high disposable incomes?
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