Digital Home Thoughts: C|Net: How Sony Failed to Connect, Again

"Early in 2005, more than a dozen Sony employees from the company's consumer electronics divisions gathered for an unusual meeting in the tiny Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters of digital media start-up Kinoma. Kinoma Chief Executive Peter Hoddie, an Apple Computer alumnus, had been put in charge of high-profile Sony software development, including the Connect digital music project. For a company historically averse to using outside technology, this was a significant step... 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 to catch Apple."

John Borland gives us a facinating look at Connect, Sony's would-be competiter to iTunes. Traditionally, Sony prefers not to contract out to other software developers, instead trying to develop everything in-house. This time though, in an effort to catch up to Apple, they partnered with Palo Alto-based Kinoma, and it was all downhill from there. A very interesting read, and a great insight as to why Sony has failed to step up to the plate where digital music content is concerned.