Sony's 10 greatest tech flops

Sony has had many successes, but not everything hits it big. Here are some products that didn't quite make it.

Vaio MusicClip

Sony created the portable audio market in 1979 when it launched the Walkman brand. Then Sony beat Apple to market in digital music by two years -- but its first products bombed. The company's biggest misstep was its reliance on ATRAC, a proprietary file format used with Sony's MiniDisc. After 2000, digital music was all about file-sharing, and it was all MP3. Couple that mismatch with confusion within Sony -- its VAIO PC division brought out products (including the MusicClip) that competed with Walkman digital players -- and Sony set itself up for a stumble.

Original story: Sony Debuts MusicClip MP3 Player, Nov. 15, 1999.

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