Davie, Aibo and Qrio are Being Taken to the Farm…
Listening to: BBC Radio 1
… No, sorry, you won’t be able to visit them.
Aibo and Qiro (amongst others) are being taken out the back and shot:
Sony reported some of its strongest quarterly earnings in several years on Thursday
and upgraded its forecast for the full year. Both sales and net profits jumped to
all-time highs, helped by good news from product sectors that had been problematic.
In a continuation of its cost-cutting efforts, however, Sony also said that it
would discontinue several more products including its Aibo robot.
Ten months after a major management reshuffle that saw Howard Stringer appointed
chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), the company reported sales and operating
revenue of ¥2.4 trillion ($20 billion as of the last day of the period being reported)
for the three months to December, up 10% from a year earlier. Net income was ¥168.9
billion, up 18%.
Personally I think that’s a huge shame… I think that Sony was placing itself in
a really strong position to be a real player in the domestic robotics area.
UPDATE: BBC World has an article about
the progress towards the Age of Robots. I can’t help but feel that personal robots
are waiting for a disruption point similar to that experienced with the PC.
