Inside Sony's failure to Connect

John Borland over at CNET News.com has a nice piece about Sony's failed attempt at catching up to iTunes (and the iPod) with its Connect digital music service. From the article:

Programmers went to work on the project, intended to be Sony's answer to Apple's iTunes. But the tone had been set for a dysfunctional mix of politics, programming, and pique that would prove deeply destructive to Sony's digital music ambitions. Fourteen months later, a disastrous product launch doomed Sony's latest attempt at catching Apple.

Blunders such as having no native MP3 support for Network Walkmans, poor SonicStage software, and an insistence on pushing its ATRAC3 format could be blamed on Sony's apparent lack of interdepartmental communication and vision. Can Sony, in particular its crumbling digital music empire, make a comeback?