Toshiba made the call to drop their HD-DVD business a few weeks ago, and good on them. They learned from Sony’s mistakes.

For those in the dark, Sony pulled a similar move starting back in the 1970s. Back in 1975, Sony released an innovative new product called Betamax. Previous to the Betamax videocassete, the dominant format for movies was film. Film has it’s advantages, but portability and ease of use ain’t them. Betamax tapes were extremely portable, easy to use, and most importantly, a commercial success with home consumers.

Like any new technology, Betamax took a little while to catch on, and before Sony really had a chance to get much of a foothold, JVC released a competing technology called… VHS. VHS tapes were bigger, and perhaps didn’t have quite as high a picture quality, but with some savvy business decisions, and help from other hardware manufacturers, VHS gained the greater market share.

Things dragged on for a while, but by 1981, five years after the introduction of the VHS format, the Beta format only had 25% of the market. From a consumer point of view, it was pretty much over. VHS was the way to go. However, Sony kept slugging it out. They stuck with Betamax for years. It wasn’t until 1988 that the first Sony VHS deck came out, and get this, Sony kept building Beta machines until 2002.

In the end, Sony spent a good 25 years backing the wrong horse. They could have cut their losses and moved on at any point, but chose to stick it out to the bitter end.

Now to contrast things a bit, Toshiba came out with their first commercial HD-DVD player in March of 2006. They officially dropped it in February of 2008, just short of 2 years later.

Now I’m sure this was an extremely difficult decision for Toshiba to make, but I really think it will be for the better in the long run. Having devoted relatively few years to the HD-DVD format (compared to Sony’s 25+ years of devotion to Betamax), Toshiba can now wash it’s hands of the whole affair, and move on. Sure, it will take a financial pounding while the fallout settles, but it won’t be long before everyone has forgiven and forgotten.

Toshiba can now concern itself with the future, and I think that’s exactly what they’re doing.

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