QOTD

“Sony hasn’t taken open technology very seriously in the past. Its CONNECT music download service was a failure. It was based on OpenMG, a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology. At the time, we thought we would make more money that way than with open technology, because we could manage the customers and their downloads. This approach, however, created a problem: customers couldn’t download music from any Web sites except those that contracted with Sony. If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple Inc. of the U.S….Apple’s iTunes Store uses its own proprietary DRM called FairPlay. I think this gives Sony a chance to provide something that Apple can’t. And we have to move ahead and grab that opportunity before Apple begins to provide support for other hardware and blocks us out.”

— Sony CEO Howard Stringer says hindsight is 20/20.