
Sony spins off camera business into separate company - notlukesky
https://petapixel.com/2020/03/26/sony-spins-off-camera-business-into-separate-company/
======
simonlc
For those uninitiated to the photography world, Sony, in the past few years
has completely disrupted the entire profesional, and amature camera markets.
They are ahead of the curve in mirrorless formats, and have forced other
makers like Nikon and Canon to make the switch.

~~~
rosstex
No mention of Fuji here? I love me my X-T20.

~~~
simonlc
Well Fuiji seems to be doing great too but I didnt mention them because they
arent one of the top manufacturers for professional cameras at the time. I
personally have both an a7ii and xt2, and I much prefer the fuji.

~~~
deftturtle
Been wondering about switching to X-Pro2 or X-T2 from Sony a7ii. I can't
afford to own both. Any thoughts, or just keep the full frame sony? I don't
have any native lenses for either and just adapt analog film lenses

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paxys
“Through the establishment of Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony will not only
accelerate the integrated operation of the EP&S businesses,” reads the
release, “but also aim to optimize its organizational structure, talent and
business portfolio, while further enhancing competitiveness and creating new
business.”

Man, this reads like someone got it from a corporate text generator.

~~~
laurieg
It's almost certainly a translation from Japanese. The "not only...but
also..." pattern is giveaway, plus the rather long sentence stitched together
with "while". It can be really hard to force Japanese into natural sounding
English.

~~~
rtpg
For the curious the original text

>
> ソニーエレクトロニクス株式会社の設立により、EP&S傘下の事業間の一体運営をさらに推進し、組織・人材の最適化、既存事業の競争力強化、そして新規事業の創出と成長を図ります。

I mean it's still boilerplate business reasons but it doesn't feel as much of
a word salad

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crazygringo
> _spinning off its entire “Electronics Products & Solutions” (EP&S)
> segment... into an intermediate holding company..._

> _Restructuring like this happens all the time, often with little to no
> effect on consumers._

Seems barely newsworthy, just an internal reorg. Not really sure why this is
so upvoted. It's not like they're rebranding or bringing in outside investors
or doing it to an underperforming division in obvious preparation for selling
it.

~~~
hrktb
It means the EPS business is healthy enough to sail on its own. It may also
means easier partnerships with entities that wouldn’t have stuck with Sony as
a whole, in particular in these times where serious competitors are emerging.

The division has been doing a very good job for a long time, it feels like a
pretty promising news overall.

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emptybits
For those not keeping up with the consumer and pro digital camera scene,
nearly all brands (except Canon?) buy Sony sensors for their cameras.[1]
Nikon, Panasonic, Olympus, etc.

[1] [https://www.techradar.com/news/chances-are-these-sony-
sensor...](https://www.techradar.com/news/chances-are-these-sony-sensors-are-
in-your-new-camera) (and many other references for this)

~~~
AuryGlenz
Yeah, Canon is the major exception. Because of that their sensors are always
at least one step behind everyone else’s.

~~~
pwdisswordfish2
I remember reading somewhere that Canon does this on purpose. For example,
Sony cameras are known to have overheating problems that Canon doesn’t have,
because they value reliability more than being on the cutting edge.

~~~
ksk
The other main reason is that upgrading the tooling for sensor fabrication is
super super expensive, and Canon has historically used the high-volume entry
level camera market to subsidize this, while sony uses their smarphone
business to subsidize it. Canons entry level camera market is tanking just
like everyone elses which probably made them weary of such investments in the
past few years (till Sony came and stole their lunch). It seems like they've
decided to go for the high end high-profit segment. I'm super interested to
see what kind of sensor there is in the R5. They're probably not at A9 read-
speeds quite yet, but it will be interesting to see how close they've gotten.

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jungletime
Samsung was in this space too. Gave it up ahead of the curve, seeing how
people don't buy cameras anymore. It wasn't a very profitable business for
Samsung, despite making a great camera system. Sony jumped out ahead too. But
hasn't really innovated in the last round. They were the best in autofocus,
but Canon has great autofocus too. Canon Beats Sony with much more pleasing
image colors, and huge lens selection. Panasonic has better stabilization, and
makes better video cameras. I would compare Sony to a 1 inch thick Razor
Gaming Laptop. Great on specs. Kind of sucks as a laptop. Still Sony has a
very popular midrange camera system. And their low light performance is the
best.

~~~
starky
I'm curious as to why you say they haven't really innovated in the last round?
"Real-time tracking AF" was pretty mind-blowing at release and forced Canon
and Nikon to spend the past year making firmware updates to their bodies to
try to get closer. Not to mention that the Sony A7RIV debuted their 61MP
sensor. In reality, the cameras available on the market today are amazing and
take excellent photos in most conditions. Rather than trying to push the
envelope I'd much rather see some of these companies try to refine their
products to make them nicer to use.

You could definitely make the claims about lack of innovation in the latest
A6XXX series and the A9II though, both of those were small iterative upgrades
that ignored some very real issues with those cameras.

~~~
jungletime
I don't want to get into an argument about specs. Huawei and Samsung just
released a 100 MP phone this month. So even in the specs department, Sony is
behind, and was no further ahead than phones back then.

Increasing mega pixel count, and adding eye tracking is not that innovative.
Computers could do eye tracking for a long time.

Also for video, really fast auto focus is not always desirable. Sometimes you
want a slower smoother ramp. You also don't want everything to be in focus,
often you want things to be blurred out in the background, to bring attention
to your subject. The small choice of lenses, really limits how you can do that
on a sony camera.

The lack of stabilization, horrible rolling shutter, and plastic look to their
image, with awful skin tones, is what Sony should innovate on.

Here's a video comparison of skin tones. This girl switched from a $500 Canon
g7x mark ii to a $1000 Sony RX one generation ahead. Canon has 1080p, Sony 4k.
You would thing it would be an easy win for the Sony. But sony somehow Sony
manages to bring out every blemish and adds a green tone to her face.

[http://www.youtubemultiplier.com/5db87f9d399d0-sony-rx-vs-
ca...](http://www.youtubemultiplier.com/5db87f9d399d0-sony-rx-vs-
canon-g7x.php)

This guy does funny camera reviews. Perfectly summarizes what some of the
problems with Sony are.
[https://youtu.be/Xf6Y1QPXRb0?t=238](https://youtu.be/Xf6Y1QPXRb0?t=238)

~~~
starky
I don't want to get into an argument about specs either, because in the end
all that matters is whether you can get the shot. From a technological
standpoint there is a significant difference between the 1/1.8" sensor or
whatever those 108MP sensors are, and a 61MP FF sensor in a high end camera.

How does computers doing eye tracking have anything to do with whether is is
impressive that a handheld camera can do it? It is the implementation in a
compact, low power device that is innovative.

Re-framing the discussion to be about video here doesn't help your argument at
all. Having fast autofocus means that you can choose how smooth transitions
are, better autofocus just allows you to better control how your camera reacts
to a situation. Sony doesn't have a small choice of lenses, they have the
largest native selection of lenses of any mirrorless system and really have
very few holes at this point.

I don't know why you are comparing two compact 1" class prosumer point and
shoot cameras when this discussion was about mirrorless cameras. Similar to
RAW for stills, when it comes to video, if you really care about skin tones
you will probably be shooting in log and doing your own colour grading or at
the very least creating your own picture profiles with your preferred
adjustments.

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spiralganglion
Seems like this is affecting more than just their camera business.

Do we know which division the PlayStation now falls under? This is a big year,
with the next generation consoles just around the corner. So far, Sony has
been keeping a low profile relative to Microsoft, and I think it's been
harming their image a bit. I'd hate to see this sort of a corporate
restructuring (perhaps forcing a change of company name?) pull the attention
away from their new tech, new games, and plans for the next decade.

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
PlayStation is under Sony Interactive Entertainment. To be honest PlayStation
is very important for Sony so I would not worry. Sony can change their name
all they want but the PlayStation brand is incredibly valuable due to its
cultural significance.

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mortenjorck
Can someone better-versed in corporate organizational strategy explain the
advantages of spinning off a company that remains under the same conglomerate
umbrella? I can understand it as an intermediate step to prepare a business
unit for a sale, but what other motivations are there?

~~~
robjan
It limits the parent company's liabilities for one. If, for some reason, the
camera division starts hemorrhaging money they can just cut it off or let it
go bankrupt without harming the parent company too much.

~~~
hrktb
It also allows to bind partnerships without having to deal with the parent
company.

It happens with their NFC division for instance, that they spun out in a joint
venture with Docomo and take over the mobile world by storm.

If tomorrow Nintendo wanted to work with EP&S, they wouldn’t have to go
through all the legalese that would be implied if it was with Sony proper.

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esturk
If activist investors are so effective in demanding change, why don't more of
them push for more changes in chaebols like Samsung? Seems like the more
simplification there are, the more efficiency can be gained and the greater
the stockholder return.

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milleramp
Does this include the image sensor design and fab division, the article is not
really clear?

~~~
solarkraft
This is an important question, as the vast majority of high-end smartphone and
other camera sensors are manufactured by them (Canon is the notable
_exception_ as a company that doesn't use Sony sensors) and it's a very
profitable business.

If I understand correctly from the official announcement the three sub-
companies are going to be "Imaging Products & Solutions", "Home Entertainment
& Sound" and "Mobile Communications" \- the sensor business would fall pretty
neatly into the first one.

~~~
thedance
I don't think so. I think "imaging products" is cameras. Sensors and modules
would fall under their semiconductor division.

~~~
solarkraft
I get that you wouldn't put it into -products, but what about solutions? Don't
they also make a lot of the stuff around the sensors?

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fireattack
Title is very misleading, it's not just the camera, it is their entire
consumer electronics business, including mobile and perhaps TVs etc.

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svarrall
Getting the ducks in line for a sale?

~~~
tobsmagoats
Exactly what I was thinking, if it proves to be true they will move whatever
division the Playstation line is in before Holiday 2020.

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rawoke083600
For anyone following the madness and joy that is cameras and cameras
releases... Can I plug my fav Youtube Camera Channel. "Camera Conspiracies".
This dude is real fun to watch and not as clinical as many others that just
list the features and some test shots. He is on the "hunt" for the perfect
camera now for years. Uploads few times a week. Casey if you reading this...
Keep up the good work man ! Spoiler the channel is not a fan of Sony Cameras.

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h2odragon
Didn't they buy the camera business when it was Minolta? I recall the refunds
Sony and Minolta had to issue for bad sensors back when.

~~~
stan_rogers
Minolta had been sold to Konica by that point, but yes, the Sony α line was
once Minolta's α/Maxxum/Dynax line and some of the Konica Minolta P&S and
bridge camera development came over as well (with changes related to the use
of Memory Stick and other Sony touches rather than what Konica Minolta had
been using in the non-SLR lineup).

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ChuckMcM
This makes a lot of sense to me, the camera business is pretty standalone and
has been on my wishlist for a while. That said, Sony as an industrial
conglomerate appears to be spinning apart. It will be interesting to see where
that leads.

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tyingq
Still managed by the parent company, and not sold off.

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rasz
virus = no tourists = no market for cameras?

~~~
threww5577
Sony cameras sold in Japan are infamous for not having English language
options.

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DevKoala
Smart move. Who is buying cameras now?

~~~
jakebasile
Lots of people still buy cameras, photography is still a popular and
interesting art form.

I got a Nikon Z50 a few months ago and love it.

~~~
DevKoala
Sorry, I meant amid the crisis. The camera division was about to see a major
downturn on devices sold for the next two years as society in general avoids
travel.

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cozzyd
I just bought my first SLR thinking now is a good time to learn a new hobby.

~~~
DevKoala
Then perhaps I am way off base.

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hoseja
Maybe they'll now start making ungimped smartphones? Ah, who am I kidding.

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Ice_cream_suit
They still waste shareholder capital making cameras?

Good to see David Loeb shake up these fossilised managements and deliver value
to shareholders.

