Posted on 08/27/2002 1:00:21 PM PDT by babaloo999
TOKYO (AP) - Sony closed the final chapter of its legendary battle with Victor Co. of Japan to dominate the home
video machine market, when it announced Tuesday that it would discontinue its Betamax VCRs.
Sony will stop manufacturing Betamax machines by year's end as the company refocuses its efforts on DVD and other
technologies now dominating the market, Sony spokeswoman Shoko Yanagizawa said.
The announcement marks the end of a 27-year run, during which the fabled brand sold 18 million units worldwide in
a race against VHS technology from its archrival Victor Co., which is also known as JVC, to set the video format standard.
Betamax was first to market, hitting stores in 1975 and peaking with global sales of 2.3 million units in 1984.
But the decision not to share its technology with rival companies proved to be Sony's fatal mistake.
In a classic case of the underdog winning the race, VHS -short for "video home system" - had clearly won the battle
by the mid-1980s. The technology used now in millions of video recorders around the world is JVC's.
While the war between competing standards is ensconced in business lore - with many die-hard fans still debating the
pros and cons of the two technologies - Yanagizawa blamed the decision to halt production on the new era of DVDs and
other advanced digital technologies that are making the videocassette obsolete.
Even for JVC, videocassette technology is losing its luster. The company lost money two of the last three fiscal years
and is forecasting losses for the year that ended March 31.
Overseas production of the Betamax ground to a halt in 1998. In Japan, Sony produced just 2,800 units in 2001.
So, in a fit of marketing non-expertise, IBM didn't port any of their apps to it.
In short, they didn't eat their own dogfood and drink their own Kool-Aid.
Cool. I am told that many banks still run their apps on OS/2 and also that many ATM's run OS/2 as well.
A guy I know who's been looking at the computing scene since the days of the IMSAI Altair 8080 described Microsoft vs. Everyone Else as being rather like Operation Desert Storm: Microsoft did nothing important wrong while their opposition did nothing at all right.
That's why business types have zero respect for engineers. They know people are stupid enough to create a market for rubber dog sheet and fake vomit.
Why bother getting it right when you know you can sell anything?
Back to the future with discs. Well recordable [DVD] discs. Or so says all the spam email I get.
???????
Porn tapes were out on Betamax and VHS in the early days.
I wonder it that was the problem with laser discs?
Nope. Again, porn was available on laserdisc.
I remember the demo tape that came with the Beta Hi-Fi machine, too. It had the Ride of the Valkries scene from Apocalypse Now, as well as a bunch of other stuff to show off the audio quality. There was a copy of an *old* (the first?) music video by Mike Nesmith on the tape, IIRC. It was an effective demo tape, though; it really blew the customers away.
I spent an awful lot of time on the phone, telling customers how to hook the things up.
Harley vs Honda...
I read an article about Sony fighting the porn industry tooth & nail. Maybe they caved in when they saw the sales figures of porn tapes.
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