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Fuzzy Logic It’s hari-kiri for HD DVD, can Toshiba survive?
Fuzzy Logic It’s hari-kiri for HD DVD, can Toshiba survive? | It’s hari-kiri for HD DVD, can Toshiba survive? |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Monday, 18 February 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 Now that Toshiba has done all but make the official announcement, with reports that Toshiba representatives have already anonymously confirmed HD DVD’s demise, Gressum says: “After receiving several blows in the past few weeks, the Toshiba backed HD DVD format is now running on its last leg.” Gressum believes Toshiba may well prolong the pain until April 2008, saying “After Warner Bros' exclusive Blu-ray deal, retailers and DVD rental companies have decided to stop stocking HD DVD products”. He continues that: “In our view, HD DVD is now a dead format, but we expect that Toshiba and the Promotion Group to officially support the format until April 2008, however in reality the race is now over.” How has the HD DVD debacle affected Toshiba as a company, asks Gressum, when he says: “The big question is however the impacts on Toshiba as an electronics company. It has after all bet its disc media business on HD DVD, as well as gone for HD DVD integration into some of its laptop PCs”. Gressum notes the obvious when he adds that: “The channel has inventory to clear, and demands from owners of HD DVD players. This once again shows why incompatible and mutually exclusive formats should be avoided at all cost by the industry. It reduces profitability and delays customer adoption.” Of course, if only Toshiba had managed to do a deal with Sony a couple of years ago, all of this could have been avoided. But for Sony, victory is finally sweet, after having had format losses of their own, with Betamax video tapes and Minidiscs the most obvious contenders, despite Beta still being the professional video standard and Minidiscs still on sale today. So, what will Toshiba do now? Are they really in danger, or can they absorb the Heavy Damage caused by the previously relentless backing of the HD DVD format? Please read onto page 2. |
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