The Death Of Aibo
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“Aibo is so symbolic of Sony quality I’m starting to lose
faith in Sony’s audiovisual products,”[1] said Hiroharu Hashimoto, a Tokyo based
Aibo owner.
But some industry experts also felt that the decision to shut down its low
revenue generating business, like the robotics division, clearly showed that
Howard Stringer, Sony’s first foreign Chairman and CEO, was serious about
implementing a turnaround at Sony. Sony’s management and operations
restructuring plan, initially announced in September 2005, also included plans
to cut 10,000 jobs or roughly 7% of the company’s workforce by 2008.
At that time, Sony had also announced that it expected to report a net loss of
10 billion yen for the financial year 2005-06. But in January 2006, Sony revised
its earlier loss estimate to a 70 billion yen profit on the back of higher than
expected Q3 sales of its PlayStation Portable gaming consoles and Bravia
televisions.
ADDITIONAL READINGS AND REFERENCES
1. “Sony Posts Record Profit on TV, PlayStation Sales,”
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=anRKSL0TTeqk&refer=home,
January 26, 2006.
2. “Sony Puts AIBO Robot Dog to Sleep,”
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1916257,00.asp, January 27, 2006.
3. Charles Arthur, “Why did Sony kill off its Aibo robot dog?”
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1699508,00.html, February 02,
2006.
4. “Robot pet lovers lament demise of Sony’s Aibo,”
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/bizfocus/archives/2006/02/05/2003291702,
February 05, 2006.
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RELATED CASE STUDIES
[1]
“Robot pet lovers lament demise of Sony's Aibo,”
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/bizfocus/archives/2006/02/05/2003291702,
February 05, 2006.
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