Loading ...To Sony Ericsson, From A Fan
In case you haven’t seen it already Eldar Murtazin over at Mobile-Review has published an open letter to Sony Ericsson CEO Bert Nordberg. The jist of the letter is essentially to give a wake up call to Sony Ericsson over their lacklustre performance these past few years. It’s a sentiment close to many Sony Ericsson fans’ hearts and as such I thought I would spend a few moments presenting my own thoughts on the matter.
The first thing to say is that Eldar hits the nail on the head with one simple idea: Sony Ericsson have been ignoring the problems they face. It’s as simple as that. I see them. You see them. Eldar sees them. The press sees them. Their competitors see them. In fact the only people who haven’t seen them, or have chosen not to, are Sony Ericsson themselves. Time after time we have been presented with the same tired old party line that Sony Ericsson remain innovative and cutting edge; it’s a lie that becomes more hollow the more it is repeated. It’s time to stop chanting this mantra and wake up to reality.
For too long Sony Ericsson has coasted, releasing handsets that are at best ‘ok’, just enough to sell reasonably well and keep the company from completely sinking. At worst they are handsets that are filled with flawed hardware and buggy firmware. I could list several examples, but you’ve probably already thought of a couple before you have even reached the end of this sentence. Time after time we see products released that can only be described as ‘not fit for purpose’. The W910? Buggy to the core. The W580? Poor quality keypads that consistently cracked. The C905? They plumbed new depths with this one, buggy software and poor quality hardware. It wasn’t always like this though. This is the same company that gave us the T610, the K750 and the P800. This is the company that introduced the Walkman music-phone and the Cybershot cameraphone. So where has it gone wrong?
Complacency. Self-denial. Laziness. Hubris. These are all traits Sony Ericsson have displayed over the past few years. Cutting corners on products to get them out whilst leaving customers with sub-standard handsets. A refusal to change with the market and an insistence on sticking to tired old formats like outdated operating systems and connection ports. Pathetic corporate controlled attempts at generating ‘buzz’ and ‘excitement’ over weak handsets that are consistently late to market. A clear example would be the X1. Announced almost a year before being launched in a vain attempt to promote excitement and build a following. It backfired because the excitement died down after almost a year with no handset available! The PR campaign surrounding the X1 was ill conceived too; a corporate directed initiative to create a social scene around the handset with a PR agency employed to create a blog about the product. Why not engage existing bloggers, who are actually fans, more widely? Come on chaps, is that the best that could be done for the X1?
I’m using some specific examples here, but the fact is that Sony Ericsson, as it currently stands, is rotten to the core. It exudes a tired sickly image of a man staggering down the road trying to live on past glories. Only he won’t admit the world has moved on and that his way of doing things no longer works. So what can be done?
Take risks. Don’t be afraid of releasing handsets that actually push boundaries. Give us products that make us sit up and say ‘wow’ when we first see them. Extra megapixels is not innovation. More memory is not innovation. Cutting corners is not innovation. Treating bloggers and the press with contempt, when and if they are approached at all, is not innovation. Handsets that offer never before seen features and applications is innovative. Products that do things in exciting new ways is innovative. Phones that give us the ability to make our lives easier are innovative. Connecting with customers, bloggers and the press instead of dealing with hired PR agencies is innovative.
I take no pleasure in writing this because it’s something that should never have to be written, but Sony Ericsson has always been my favourite phone manufacturer and so I feel compelled to say something. Eldar’s letter wasn’t borne out of malice and neither is this, quite the contrary. I want to see Sony Ericsson at the top of their game again and I know they can be. Your customers have stuck with you Sony Ericsson, they have suffered through all manner of poorly executed products and badly planned projects and it’s time you started to listen to them. Repeating the same tired platitudes that you listen, that you innovate and that you are at the forefront of the mobile market doesn’t wash with us anymore. We are tired of words, we want action. We want the Sony Ericsson we knew and loved back!
Filed under: Open letter
(42 votes, average: 4.74 out of 5)
Loading ...
I completely agree with Eldar Murtazin, still, Sony Ericsson is my favourite phone manufacturer.
i’ve been fan of sony ericsson for some years too, i used to change my cell phone each year, now i’ve had the w810 for over 3 years and i haven’t feel like changing it, the c905 looked pretty cool but it’s so much bigger than this one, the Xperia is very expensive, this weekend i was with a friend and i knew he had gotten a c902, i was like whoa that’s a cybershot, and how big was my surprise that my w810 may have less megapixels but the sensor is better, we took the same pics from the same place and mine look much better, better light, better colors, and why haven’t they been able to add 640*480 video as default in all phones? now even the little ipod nano take video of that quality and the recording is very very decent, yeah i love to have a camera in my phone, that was the reason why i moved away from nokia and bought my first Sony Ericsson. Now how long have we know about the Satio and the Aino? by now they better be using Android!!, but SE is leaving us so behind functionality of iphones, zunes and their OS plus thew new phones with Android. yes.. sony Ericsson has let us down and looks like we should be taking a look at the other options around
yes i agree with Eldar, sony ericsson needs a fresh start, they need to start doing phones that will make us happy again.
Yup, I’m a sony ericsson fan too, and I cannot agree more with the things that Eldar and the moderators are saying. I just think they’re living in self denial. No doubt. They do need a wake up call. Let’s just hope that the new Ericsson CEO sees the situation and does something about it, and they need to do it fast. Ever since they came up with K8OO everything went downhill. I’m using the C9O5 now, and I think it sucks hardware wise, bar the camera which I thought was quite decent. While on the software side it’s not all bad, but I’ve seen enough. I’m still sticking to it because I liked the way it works, but I guess, if they do not do anything soon, we”ll see the last of them in a couple of years time, and I myself will not feel that it is a pity.
+1
i do not agree with murtazin in details, but i’m generally agree with his open letter and absolutely agree with your one
still, as jien mentioned above, sony ericsson phones are my favourite. waiting for satio!
hi. i am a huge sony ericsson fan and i am using X1 right now which is not a bad phone at all but it was overpriced. i also have a k800 and my mom is using t700 and my bro is using w995. my phone before x1 was w830 BUT and this is a big BUT NOW they have to change because the competition is giving soo much more at such a lower price that it is not funny anymore and it is very hard to overlook it now. even though i will always be a sony ericsson fan and i still think they can be the best but i wont be surprised if my next phone is not a sony ericsson. every other company is doing so well but only sony ericsson is not doing well. if they want to live in the past i cannot stop them and i cannot stop anyone but i can stop myself because its my hard earned money and if sony ericsson cant be loyal to us we shouldnt be loyal to them. i have a sony vaio, bravia lcd, bravia theatre, cybershot camera, walkman player, psp, ps3 but if sony ericsson doesnt stop this nonsense i wont be buying a sony ericsson phone atleast. they should write a book on how to make the most loved company into most hated company today. wake up sony ericsson before its too late becuase we are very loyal people and when we shift to other brand and they give us what we want it will be hard for us to come back to sony ericsson. we all see the problem but sony ericsson doesnt want to. look at apple iphone, nokia e71, samsung star, htc hero, blackberry bold, lg cookie they all are best sellers in there price range. give us a cheap touchscreen phone, qwerty type phone etc. they were innovative and cutting edge but now they follow other brands which is very embarrassing. they have to understand that they have to give customers what they want. i feel sorry for the person who invented sony because if he was alive today he would have been heartbroken. i am writing all this becuase i was seeing all this but i was hoping that sony ericsson will stop their nonsense. the world has moved on and sony ericsson also has to or else sony ericsson fans will just remember them in there hearts that once there was a worlds best phone company and we sony ericsson fans still miss it. i also take no pleasure in writing all this because sony ericsson is still my favourite and i want to see sony ericsson at the top and i also know they can. we fans have stuck with you sony ericsson and now its your time to do the same. yes we want action and not words. action speaks louder than words. we want the sony ericsson we knew and loved back. give us a good product with good features and for gods sake dont overprice it and see how all sony ericsson fans will be there to buy it. I LOVE SONY ERICSSON. dont be the next motorola.
Ehummm. hum.
Did yo ahhhr … send? This letters to the Bert already. I mean also on the Internets on email.
I believe, if so, that read it he might, and good use of it make.
Domo Arigato
/The Dick
You are so right, all of you. Even Eldar is…never thought I ‘d hear that.
It does take lots of effort to make big changes dear fans. But I do think we are going in the right direction at least. Around the corner you have:
* The first touch and PS3 supported phone in Aino
* The first Symbian powered handset with a truly great camera and media center
* The first gesture control gaming phone in Yari.
* The first see through lcd on a phone in xperia pureness
* The first 8 mega pixel phone running Window Mobile in X2
And there are rumors (…) that there are quite an impressive Android phone coming too.
I mean you do not need to love them all, but we are innovative and deliver great devices.
One of the Semc guys.
I also just cant seem to set aside my w810 yet. I’m hoping the aino could potentially replace it.
[...] goes straight to the heart of the matter. In response to Eldar’s letter I myself published a response over on SE-NSE (where I am an admin). Both letters level pretty much the same charges at Sony [...]
PUX- yes you are right that it takes lot of effort to make big changes but if other companies can do it sony ericsson can do it better than them but they are doing it worse than them and that is what hurts. whenever i go shopping for electronics the first company i see is SONY/SONY ERICSSON and i prefer sony/sony ericsson over any electronic company and if they are giving me a good product i tbuy a SONY/SONY ERICSSON rather than any other company and this is how much i am loyal and love sony but it seems like sony/sony ericsson doesnt love us. sony is lucky to have fans like us and if they just want to charge us more for a sony product but instead give us a inferior product sooner or late we will change our path because it is very hard now to overlook other brands as we pay high for a sony product but still we get less features than other brands. yes yari, aino, satio, x2, pureness is coming soon but they all will be very overpriced and still satio, aino, yari, pureness doesnt have a 3.5mm jack whereas seeing x2 it seems sony ericsson made it in a hurry. where is the budget touchscreen phone from sony ericsson like nokia 5800 xpress music or samsung star or htc viva or lg cookie etc.? where is the qwerty phone from sony ericsson like nokia e71, blackerry etc? there is no smartphone in the low and middle price range. when will sony ericsson make a good middle price range smartphone ? i am happy with all other products by sony like vaio, bravia, bravia theatre, cybershot camera, walkman player, ps2, psp. i am a very loyal fan of sony ericsson and trust me they are forcing me to buy another brand phone by not launching a good phone with good features with decent price tag. if sony ericsson is reading it please we want the old sony ericsson back becuase the fans of sony ericsson are waiting for you to give us a good product and all your ex fans will also be back and buy your product. we all are ready to forget the past but you have to give us a good product now. we have the confidence in you but why have you lost confidence in yourself. we want you back and we want you back for good. I LOVE SONY ERICSSON.
@Pux
sorry to burst your bubble but:
* The first touch and PS3 supported phone in Aino
-this will only apply to a niche group, and what does ps3 support even mean?
* The first Symbian powered handset with a truly great camera and media center
-we dont know anything about how great the camera and media center are, and there were other symbian phones with good cameras and good media centers.
* The first gesture control gaming phone in Yari.
-soo… copying the ipod touch/iphone now?
* The first see through lcd on a phone in xperia pureness
-thats just a gimmick, how many people can say that is useful in any way? and another niche product
* The first 8 mega pixel phone running Window Mobile in X2
- doesnt really matter, and it could hardly be called a first in any respect, you could put an 8 megapixel camera on a phone with a monochrome screen and still say thats a “first”. but a respectable “first”? i dont think so. 8 megapixels is 8 megapixels, there will be more to come and many people will be willing to settle for a 5mpx WM phone if it costs half as much as the x2 (which it probably will)
@ktonlai
While i do agree that SE has hit the pits, at least they have taken notice to make changes. Their new lineup is indeed somewhat impressive.
The Aino is a great addition for Sony lovers. ps3 support means that you can the content on your ps3 wherever you go. So, any music and movies on your PS3, you can access on your aino wherever you are. This is great as this pretty much allows you to stream 20 or more gigs worth of stuff. Now, how well this will work remains to be seen
The Satio has already been raved to be able to replace a digital point and shoot. Besides one of the main attractions is that has a XENON flash. I have to say that this is one of my drawing points to the Satio. There are other phones with good cameras, but none of them can beat the Satio. However, I will admit that there are phones that are better media centers, one being the I8910 HD with its divx support.
The Yari is not copying the iphone/itouch. If you mean accelerometer games, then those have been around for awhile. The iphone just made the games run better. The Yari is taking the WII functions and putting it on a phone.
The Pureness is just a gimmick, but its still a cool gimmick - one that is better than the LG Crystal. However, the screen size looks a little small and in practicality, i’m wondering how well it works as there will be the factor of lackluster colors.
Windows Mobile X2 with an 8 mp is not revolutionary nor can it claim to be revolutionary. We’ll have to wait to see how well this phone plays out with winmo. The biggest attraction, imo, is the panels that people seem to LOVE about it.
The first one to put gesture controls in phones was Sony Ericsson (Japan) FYI.
[...] : sebuah surat dari seorang fan untuk Sony [...]
@ktonai:
I’m just saying that we are not just redoning the same old propriatory Java phones that we used to.
Some answers to your questions:
* Features in the PS3 support with remote play involves these features (all through 3g or wifi):
- Boot up your PS3
- Play movies
- Play music
- Access the PS3 web browser
- Chat through the PS3 community
- Download content from the Playstation store (to the ps3)
Satio:
Go to the Satio blog to find out everything about it : blogs.sonyericsson.com/satio
Of course other manufacturers have cameras and media centers no one is arguing with that.
Yari:
Gesture control is not gaming using an accelerometer. It uses the front camera to record you movements, much like the Wii console does. Iphone does not have this, and no other product has yet. and for the record we had accelerometered gaming before apple even spawned iphone…
As I said, I am just stating that we are working on new stuff to please our fans. There is of course a lot more that I cannot tell you about but rest assure that cool stuff is coming.
And if you do by a competitor phone next time I just hope we can convince you to come back to us in the future by releasing evermore cool products.
@akshay:
It is sad that you find the feature per dollar to be too low. And yes if you compare to our competitiors I can agree with you in some cases. Price is of course related to cost of development and I hope we can cut both development time and end price.
I don’t know the pricing of the Aino, Yari, Satio and X2 yet but lets hope they are competitive.
I really agree… Sony ericsson should stop using the samething again and again but I just have a question is the W 910 really buggy because my friend has it and it’s really working great.
pux- what do you mean by “i find the feature per dollar to be too low”. ? anyways i am not here to insult sony ericsson as i am a huge fan of it but the reason to my anger is that sony ericsson isnt doing well. i want sony ericsson to be the no.1 phone company but theyare always late in releasing phones and they are lagging behind compare to the competition. like for exmaple sony ericsson satio - it is the perfect touchscreen phone but it will be overpriced and why do you always forget to put 3.5mm jack on your phones and this is the flagship model. can you please tell me when is sony ericsson satio releasing in india and US.. ? and plus you have to launch a good touchscreen phone in the middle price range also and qwerty phone like blackberry and e71. please dont overprice satio as i really want to buy it and i am willing to forget that it doesnt have a 3.5mm jack because it has everything else.
@pux
Thanks for your response. Hopefully the satio and x2 will be released soon/be priced competitively/ do better in sales
good luck in your future endeavors.
=)
@ashkay
you apparantly see stuff the way i do. if the satio is not overpriced $549 max, im getting it for sure. There are so many reasons not to get it for a price higher than that and only my fan boyism could still persuade me. but then again, there arent many se fanboys anymore and the number is fallin every week. so do yourselves a favor, price your phones reasonably already!
pux- good luck in your future endeavors and i hope u listen to sony ericsson fans and dont overprice your products and give us good products in the future
n btw i still love SE.
rou- i am willing to pay 600$ for satio but not more than that. if they price it 600$ i am going to buy it no matter what. true there are not many se fans left and the numbers are actually falling every week due to very good competition from apple, nokia, blackberry, samsung, htc etc. nw its only upto SE to realize it and its time for them to get back and do what they do best and show other companies that they havnt given up and they can still be a force to reckon with. they have to make their ex fans back in buying sony ericsson again and this can only happen when they release feature packed phones at competitive prices. SE 4 LIFE ( i hope ) .
sony ericsson uses fast port, sony walkman uses walkman port, psp go has its own port.
please unify these ports not only the brand slogan…
My personal experience with SE k510i is nothing to write home about, and did not expect such a stuff from sony.
hello,
im from malaysia and am totally agree to what the letter stated….
im also had been using se for years and experience prob like faulty w910…not really great 8.1mp of c905…
still se is my fav phone producer …hope se can manage their problem in near future
SE ROCKS - WRITTEN WITH A SATIO : ) COMING TO A STORE NEAR YOU VERY SOON. CHEER UP GUYS
what u have said here is 100% true & i’m accepting it…we still wants SE to be the No.1 in market…i’m sure no one will forget its first walkman phone …
Lets cheerup…..
PUX - wow i am waiting but when is it releasing in india and US.. ?
@akshay; Well that depends on the operators, I am not sure of that unfortunately. You need to call your favourite operator and ask them
In general U.S Carriers are very slow at accepting phones though, let’s hope the Indian carriers are not.
PUX - oh ok.. thanks a lot.. i am waiting.. satio might be the phone which will replace my awesome xperia x1..
I love you. You just gave me a reference for my uni assignment comparing Apple’s iPhones, to Sony Ericsson’s.
Legend!
are you f*cking joking me? 550 euro for the satio?
the phone doesnt even have a qwerty keyboard! much less a proper screen resolution >.>
heres to hoping for an epic price drop within the next few weeks.
Top notch stuff costs that much my friend. A certain apple phones costs 30% more and the Omnia Hd is even more expensive.
But as always, you need a descent contract tied to it and then you don’t care about the total price
It’s gonna be mine on swisscom
[...] weeks ago SE-NSE published an open letter to Sony Ericsson highlighting some of the problems they believe the company faces and calling on [...]
Sony Ericsson, it’s high time you started producing smartphones and touchscreen phones, for the high-end as well as the mid-range segments, if not the budget segments. Let go of your notion that “nobody needs a smartphone” or “how many people use or actually need the features on a smartphone?” Most do, so wake up. Bring some good QWERTY phones out in the market. Bring some good touchscreen phones out. Bring some good smartphones out. The hell, you guys were once real competitors to Nokia, but Samsung’s been more innovative than you, churning out product after good product, while you’ve been slipping down the drain. You’d better change…for the better…or (I hate to say this) your fate is going to be that of Siemens Mobile, where nobody would be interested in your products anymore. So, do you want to really take that route and commit Hara-Kiri, or do you wish to win back your fans and others?
There is a Sony Ericsson event tonight to launch the Satio, Aino and Yari tonight at KL Life, Life Centre, Jalan Sultan Ismail.
9pm onwards, with performances from Camelia and DJ Gabriel.
Check out more in Facebook - Sony Ericsson Malaysia fan page.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Sony-Ericsson-Malaysia/188272383695?ref=ts