#65 Decline of Japanese CE companies

A Sony Wega rear-projection television found by the garbage in New York.

(Credit: John Falcone/CNET)

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...Prev
#1. Samsung v. Apple
#2. Windows 8
#3. Mobile usage reaches tipping point
#4. Tablets go mainstream
#5. New fronts in the tech wars
#6. Samsung Galaxy S3
#7. Apple iPhone 5
#8. Foxconn charged with poor working conditions
#9. Facebook's IPO
#10. Tim Cook
#11. LTE/4G connectivity
#12. Marissa Mayer
#13. SOPA legislation
#14. Microsoft Surface
#15. Google Nexus 7
#16. Steven Sinofsky
#17. Cracks show at Apple in the post-Jobs era
#18. Apple iPad Mini
#19. Patent wars heat up
#20. BlackBerry 10 delay
#21. Curiosity starts roving around Mars
#22. Bandwidth crunch has consumer implications
#23. Virtual assistants for mobile devices
#24. Mark Zuckerberg
#25. High-pixel density in your hand
#26. Social algorithms and social mapping
#27. Crowdfunding ideas
#28. Startups jump the shark (and get their own TV show!)
#29. Apple's 'mapology'
#30. The quick rise and fall of Zynga
#31. Phablets
#32. Jeff Bezos
#33. Disney buys Lucasfilm
#34. Traditional TV business model gets turned on its head
#35. Ultrabooks DOA
#36. Windows Phone 8
#37. Motorola Droid Razr Maxx
#38. MakerBot Replicator
#39. Rise of Instagram
#40. Sandy pushes the limits of tech
#41. Mobile payments
#42. Privatization of space travel
#43. Nintendo Wii U
#44. Jack Dorsey
#45. Netflix's undoing and recovery
#46. Twitter gets even bigger
#47. Cloud computing goes mainstream
#48. Sergey Brin
#49. Huawei accused of harboring international spies
#50. Social media makes money
#51. Wearable technology
#52. 4K TVs
#53. Chromebook gets real
#54. Gangnam Style breaks YouTube record
#55. Sheryl Sandberg
#56. Concierge economy takes off
#57. Path privacy scandal leads to App Store changes
#58. Nokia Lumia family
#59. Elon Musk of SpaceX
#60. Home automation
#61. Flashback malware hits Macs
#62. Tesla Model S
#63. Google Glass
#64. Thorsten Heins takes over at RIM
#65. Decline of Japanese CE companies
#66. Companies choose 'glamor' launches over trade shows
#67. Lytro camera
#68. iPad with Retina Display
#69. Nate Silver
#70. Cyberwarfare gets real
#71. Political hackers
#72. Larry Page
#73. 3D TV
#74. Drones
#75. Reed Hastings
#76. Jonathan Ive
#77. Curation becomes a form of expression
#78. Kim Dotcom
#79. Felix Baumgartner goes supersonic
#80. Nokia 808 PureView
#81. Square corners
#82. Mike Daisey
#83. Connected car revolution has arrived
#84. Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13
#85. Everything on demand
#86. Mat Honan
#87. The rise of touch
#88. OLED TVs
#89. Deal sites have a rough year
#90. The Apple TV that wasn't
#91. Google Nexus Q
#92. Self-driving cars win legal approvals
#93. Video games arrive at a crossroads
#94. Women make advances in technology
#95. Gesture controls grow up
#96. Julian Assange
#97. John McAfee blogs on the run
#98. Scott Thompson
#99. IPv6
#100. James Cameron's deep-sea dive
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It wasn't that long ago that Sony was the gold standard in consumer electronics. Now, it's scrambling with subpar products, a tarnished brand, and has been scrambling to find a sense of direction. Its downturn underscores the broader troubles that the Japanese electronic giants all face, companies that include Panasonic and Sharp. Sadly, Sony may be the best positioned among them to mount a comeback.

The fall of these companies provides a warning to others that attempt to do too much, spreading themselves too thin and missing out on crucial trends, like the rise of the global smartphone and high-definition flat-panel television markets. Curiously, the South Korean companies Samsung and LG have excelled where the Japanese companies have struggled. That's caused a seismic shift in the kinds of televisions and electronics products you see in store shelves.

For more on this story, see Roger Cheng's analysis here.

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