By way of example, I thought back to my experience with the Sony Walkman (yes, I am that old).
As a result, Sony handed its leadership of the portable-music market, which it established with the Sony Walkman, to Apple.
Just one generation ago the closest thing to an iPod was a Sony Walkman hooked up to an IBM mainframe computer.
The other was personal recording technology, such as the Sony Walkman.
The Russell Street Cinema is so magically 1980s that crossing the threshold will instantly transform your iPhone into a Sony Walkman.
Sony Ericsson, a joint venture between Sony and Swedish phone maker Ericsson, has ably leveraged Sony Walkman and Cybershot technology in its phones.
Beginning this September, runners, marathoners, and music fans will get to compete in Rock the Race with Meb, presented by Sony Walkman W Series.
In a separate look at YouTube, Pew noted that the most viewed video at the site last week had nothing to do with Jackson, Billy Mays or a Sony Walkman.
The topic of greatest attention in social media last week, by contrast, was a BBC Magazine story about a 13-year-old English kid who gave up his iPod for a week to try an original model of a Sony Walkman, according to Pew.
Once teams of hard-working Japanese salesmen had prised open American and European markets in the 1970s, Western consumers were quickly won over by Japanese quality, design and price, whether in fuel-efficient cars or snazzy electronic gizmos, such as the Sony Walkman (for readers under 30: a portable machine that played music from tapes) or the Nintendo DS (for readers over 30: a gadget for playing video games).
When MP3 rolled around and Sony's walkman customers were clamoring for a solid-state MP3 player, Sony let its music business-unit run its show: instead of making a high-capacity MP3 walkman, Sony shipped its Music Clips, low-capacity devices that played brain-damaged DRM formats like Real and OpenAG.
It has now become the leader in portable music, a business once dominated by Sony with the Walkman.
Since the decline of other Sony products like the Walkman, the Playstation division is now the padding for Sony's bottom line.
The iPod defines a product category, as Sony's Walkman once did when music was delivered on cassette instead of over the internet.
Sony built the Walkman for portable listening, first on cassette, then CD.
Sony invented the Walkman and the portable CD player, but was never more than a third-fiddle player in the digital audio world.
And while Apple got its start as a computer company, Jobs has slowly shifted the company into consumer electronics, with the iPod displacing Sony's Walkman as the world's favorite personal music machine.
Another bright spot is Sony Ericsson, the handset joint venture with Sony, which makes Walkman phones.
Initially the system will allow file-sharing with Sony's PSP games console, Nokia's N-series mobile, Sony Ericsson's Walkman and Cybershot handsets and Microsoft's Windows Mobile smartphones.
If you're in the market for a dedicated, easy-to-pocket audio player that can handle the occasional video then it's hard to beat Sony's new Walkman S-series of players.
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Sadly, the iPod, iPhone, Zune and Windows Mobile aren't supported yet, but the rest of the device list is pretty decent: it includes the BlackBerry Pearl, Storm, and Curve, the G1, Sony Ericsson Cybershot and Walkman phones, the Kindle, Nokia N and E-series phones, and most digital cameras and flash-based camcorders.
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In the same breath, however, Sony also updated its timeline for the rest of the lineup that is still on schedule to receive upgrades to Ice Cream Sandwich: the Xperia arc, neo, mini, mini pro, pro, active and Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman will begin receiving their refreshes next week.
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Sony Ericsson have given the Walkman a new lease of life, inside the new W800 phone handset.
Sony did it with the Walkman (and again with the original PlayStation).
More than thirty years after triggering a music and lifestyle revolution, Sony has officially retired the Walkman in Japan (there is still a lone model for sale in the U.S.).
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When Apple surpassed Sony in mobile music (iPod made the Walkman obsolete), it had a fraction of the patents of Sony.
Sony Ericsson will unveil its first Walkman phone later this year.
Mr. Sneeden mentioned the TV SideView app, an electronic programming guide with voice activation that's available from the Play Store and takes advantage of the Tablet Z's built-in IR blaster -- he also pointed out that Sony's Music Unlimited and Walkman Player apps will be fully integrated by summer.
Jobs surely hasn't forgotten that before the introduction of the iPhone, Sony seemed poised (briefly) to derail Apple's iPod when it slapped the Walkman brand on a line of music-friendly Sony Ericsson handsets that have sold well in Japan.
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