c|net has written a very interesting piece related to Tim Schaaff, the new big player from Apple now in Sony’s software team. There’s some forward looking sentiments towards the end of the article which also mentions a new and upcoming Walkman.

Sony’s new software czar, Tim Schaaff, knows a little something about handling companies in turmoil.

In early 1997, Schaaff headed Apple Computer’s QuickTime engineering team. The computer maker was in internal upheaval, as the newly returned Steve Jobs cleaned house, jettisoning people and products he felt had contributed to the company’s fall from grace.

The QuickTime group, which had grown used to almost complete independence, appeared on the surface to be one of the worst suited to Jobs’ newly centralized regime. But former employees say that Shaaff’s “zen-like” influence managed to mollify Jobs and keep the group intact to an extent rare across the company at large.

“The engineers who ran QuickTime were used to making their own decisions when Steve came in with his people,” said former QuickTime evangelist Charles Wiltgen, now a Qualcomm product manager. “They were also very intelligent and very headstrong. Tim was one of the few people who could have made a love connection between those groups.”

Fast-forward to the present. The 46-year-old Schaaff has now become one of Sony’s brightest hopes, plucked from Apple late last year to fill the newly created role of senior vice president of software development, coordinating software efforts across the company’s sprawling corporate divisions for the first time.

To some, the Sony he is joining looks much like mid-1990s Apple. It is a company with a stellar hardware past but a shallow software portfolio. It has creative but insular product groups, which often communicate poorly if at all. It is in the midst of a historic upheaval aimed at reversing a long slide down from the market’s top.

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If you’re new to the site, or may have missed our exclusive coverage (including high resolution pictures, commentary) of nearly everything Sony @ CES then feel free to reference this all-inclusive entry:

- Sony CES Introduction

- NW-A3000/NW-A1000 US Debut

- Connect Reader

- Sony’s iPod Car Adapter?!

- Connect Video

- Connects2 Walkman Car Adapter

- From Push to Pull - Sir Howard’s Quest

- Compact Premium Audio System

- 4GB + 8GB MS Pro Duo

- MDR-EX90LP

- Vaio Wireless PC Audio System

- PRS-500 ‘E-Reader’

- MDR-710LP

- ‘Sirius Connect’ SIR-SNY1

We have one more video to share/discuss, which is a look at an early beta of a new PSP firmware which will enable users to watch TV wirelessly anywhere in the world amongst other things. Also, feel free to comment on the quality of our coverage and/or put requests in for next year.

Own one of these?

(MSX-M2GS)

(MSX-M1GST)

(PSP-MP1G)

There’s a good chance that if you’ve formatted, it may be displaying and not allowing the full capacity of the card! How could Sony not do even the simple task of formatting properly? Yipes.

If a normal medium has been normally formatted, its free space (of the user area) shall satisfy the condition listed below. (If smaller, the phenomenon mentioned above might be active.)

• MSX-M1GST + PSP-MP1G: 940MB or larger
• MSX-M2GS : 1850MB or larger

Full details below..
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Reside in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, The Netherlands or the United Kingdom? You’re in luck today, because apparently you can recieve an album at the Connect Store by simply registering your NW-A series Walkman through Connect Player. Hopefully this peace offering will help you completely forget the numerous woes experienced with the unit, that is if you can get the album on the player itself..

Instructions:

• 1. Install the CONNECT Player software (on the enclosed CD-ROM of the WALKMAN® package) and connect to the Internet.
• 2. Launch the CONNECT Player and click on the CONNECT Store link on the left-hand menu.
• 3. Register for CONNECT via the button “Not registered yet?”
• 4. Use the Music Search function to find the album you want.
• 5. Listen to a sample from the track by clicking the loudspeaker icon.
• 6. Add your selection to the shopping cart button.
• 7. Download your album by clicking the shopping cart icon at the top of the screen.
• 8. Enter the voucher code you received via email. Click the “Apply” button followed by the “Buy now” button.
• 9. Your album will automatically download to your PC, into the “My Music Library” section of the CONNECT Player.

A new software update for CONNECT Player is now available for download for ALL REGION. The update is of version 1.0.03.13130 and amount to approximately 24.3MB for the manual download and 19MB for the Auto Update route. (*actual installer size may vary regionally)

Problems fixed with this update Ver.1.0.03.13130

• CONNECT Player’s operating status; almost incomprehensible when problem occurs
• Edited music track information occasionally not reflected in CONNECT Player
• Music files of a certain bit rate not converted when transferred over to a WALKMAN A Series
• CONNECT Player may not start due to database related issue
• Search function (character string that includes the space) cannot be used until CONNECT Player is restarted
• Playback issue on the WALKMAN A series; for music files converted from Mp3 and WMA to ATRAC using CONNECT Player
• Tag information such as Album Jacket/Cover and Lyrics of music purchased from Mora not reflected in CONNECT Player
• A track’s rating may no longer be reflected when “Group By” is changed
• A ripped track may contain some noise if is was ripped after a previous rip of the track had been canceled
• Unable to rip a CD to a drive designated with a lowercase letter
• A track’s rating may no longer be reflected when “Group By” is changed
• The Connect Player program freezes if a file that is currently playing is deleted from the library or device.

DOWNLOAD LINKS: Sony Japan | Sony Europe | Sony Asia-Pacific | Sony Canada - via Auto Feature Update

Marking a possible turning point, Sony’s chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda announces that Sony would avoid its first annual loss in 11 years after sales of Bravia televisions and PlayStation Portable video-game consoles beat forecasts. Most analysts believed the results were just the beginning of Sir Howard’s Sony revival plan but cautioned that the electronic giant still had a long way to go – facing tough competitors at home and abroad. Is this revival sustainable? At least within Sony’s upper echelon, the restructuring plan is moving forth as planned – “The fact that sales have finally started to rise has encouraged everybody at Sony but to achieve a full turnaround, we cannot slow down structural reforms,” senior vice president Takao Yuhara said. Despite the signs of recovery and progress in its overhaul, Sony officials remained cautious about the near-term performance. “We are not in an overly festive mood,” Oneda said, noting that factors outside of Sony’s control such as foreign exchange rates and stock prices could pressure the company in the final quarter.

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Sony to Stop Making Walkmans in Japan, Shift All Production to China, Malaysia

TOKYO (AP) — The Walkman — whose original model was once Sony’s signature product — will no longer be made in Japan. Sony Corp. said Wednesday that by the end of March it will close a factory that began producing the Walkman music players in 1979 when it first debuted, according to Atsuo Omagari, a Sony spokesman. Production of Walkman brand products will be shifted to plants in Malaysia and China, he said.

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