Why Apple won’t buy Sony

A couple of weeks ago a rumour hit the press that Apple was going to buy Sony. The mere suggestion caused Sony’s share price to spike. Now, I don’t have any insider knowledge whatsoever, but I would be extremely surprised if Apple were to buy Sony.

It’s possible Apple could buy a small part of Sony, such as their entertainment businesses, but for them to take on the entirety of Sony’s gargantuan product line would be a huge mistake, and something that would be entirely out of keeping with Apple’s culture.

Apple and Sony are very different companies, with very different product philosophies. Apple has a relatively small and controlled range of products. They focus on consistent product updates, ensuring quality and cohesive, thoughtful design in everything they do. Sony, on the other hand, makes such a bewildering array of products that they can only really afford to ensure quality in a few of their offerings. There is little consistent design aspects across their various ranges, due no doubt to the disparate teams required to produce such a plethora of consumer devices.

If Apple were to buy Sony, they would go from having a manageable, tight set of products, each one the aspiration of their competitors, to an unwieldy and confusing mass of products, some of which are certainly excellent, but others that make you question why they even exist.

Don’t get me wrong, when Sony does something well they do it very well. Their TVs are excellent, and the PlayStation 3 is extremely successful. They also have a number of products, such as their stereo systems, cameras, camcorders, laptop computers, home theatre systems, headphones, and ebook readers, which while good, aren’t necessarily anything their competitors envy. Then there’s the array of stuff that could be made by any company out there to similar quality: alarm clocks, MP3 players, phones, digital photo frames. Even within each type of product, there is a massive amount of offerings: I count no less than 14 different series of LCD TVs on their Australian website, each series containing one or more distinct products.

The lack of cohesive design due to such a massive organisation is evident. From my own experiences, I’ve lamented how features present in one series of camera are absent for no good reason on another series of camera. And the last two alarm clocks I’ve owned, both made by Sony, looked and operated in such different ways you’d be astonished to learn they were from the same company.

Maybe I’m being unfair as I certainly haven’t tried everything Sony has to offer… but that’s precisely my point. One of the things that makes Apple accessible to consumers is that with such a streamlined range of products, it’s easy to decide what you want. If Apple were to take on support of all of Sony’s products, they would lose that advantage.

So I just don’t see it happening.

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