---
title: "The Real Tragedy of Sony's Rootkit Fiasco: Time to split up"
date: 2005-11-10T20:10:50Z
modified: 2005-11-10T20:10:50Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/the-real-tragedy-of-sonys-rootkit-fiasco-time-to-split-up/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 393
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2005-11-10T20:10:50Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

I haven’t seen it pointed out, so I will.

The real tragedy for Sony is that nobody but nobody is talking about using Sony devices to listen to the music they buy. Remember Walkman? Now there was a cool product. No DRM in sight. I have a Sony TV at home, the last of the Trinitrons. No DRM in sight. Sony is at its best when its building cool devices, that don’t restrict the content you play.

As the company slips away into insignifiance we may see the first big company broken on the wheel of DRM. [Promoting Howard Stringer](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_12/b3925031_mz011.htm) was a retrograde step. We knew “synergy” [wasn’t working for Sony](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/000034.html) but for some reason Sony tried again by putting a welshman from the media business in charge. Sony chose the wrong gaijin though.

The rootkit fiasco though is a symptom not a cause of the malaise affecting the company.

I mean this is the same company that refused to ship Fiona Apple’s album for more than two years, even though potential customers were clamouring for it. [Two platinum albums. Who cares – we need something that sounds like a single](http://www.soulshine.ca/news/newsarticle.php?nid=1382). Zzzzttt. One set of customers boycotting Sony.

Rootkit – there is another customer boycott.

Its time to divest the media business, and Stringer with it. Put the hardware people in charge of their own destinies. Give up on [integrated aggravation](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/000660.html).

Apple is the exception not the rule.