Ladies and gentlemen, we here at AtAT are thrilled beyond pants to announce that our brilliant and unprecedented method of eavesdropping undetectably on high-level corporate strategy meetings (we can't go into details until the patent comes through, but suffice it to say that the key to the whole thing was equipping the dwarf with a firm-bristled toothbrush) is a success of formerly unimagined proportions. We can now obtain pristine three-camera video and audio recordings of all meetings-- every board meeting, every marketing strategy bull session, every coffee-fueled late-night brainstorming session, even every interstall bathroom conversation of the slightest corporate relevance (yes, we turns off the video for those; geez)-- in near-real-time. Every secret of the company will soon lay outstretched before us.
Ah, well; at least we can offer you this translated excerpt from a transcript of a recent powwow between several Sony higher-ups discussing the sales performance of the company's portable digital music players, including the iPod-competing NW-HD1. It may provide a little enlightenment about the circumstances surrounding the news that future Sony players will incorporate MP3 compatibility instead of continuing to force users to transcode all their music into the proprietary ATRAC3 format:
Sony Biggest Wig: So how are sales of our Network Walkman line?
Sony Bigwig: Increasing steadily, sir; people are finally starting to accept that the time-consuming act of transcoding all of their MP3s to ATRAC3 is a privilege and not a chore.
Sony Biggest Wig: Excellent.
Sony Bigwig: But we still haven't sold quite as many as we'd hoped.
Sony Biggest Wig: No? Well, if I recall last quarter's sales projections, we expected to sell 300,000 NW-HD1s by the end of the third calendar quarter. How many have we actually sold?
Sony Bigwig: Six.
[A Littler Wig in attendance coughs slightly and everyone avoids eye contact.]
Sony Biggest Wig: ...Six?
Sony Bigwig: Six.
Sony Biggest Wig: Six. As in...
Sony Bigwig: ...Six, yes. But that represents a 200% improvement in unit sell-through since the product's first month of availability, which is a nearly unprecedented rate of increasing consumer uptake.
[Uncomfortably long pause]
Sony Biggest Wig: ...But it's still six.
Sony Bigwig: Well, yes.
Sony Biggest Wig: Does that include the one I bought?
Sony Bigwig: You bought one?
Sony Biggest Wig: Yeah.
Sony Bigwig: Like, at retail?
Sony Biggest Wig: Yeah. It was a show of corporate morale or support or something. My publicist said to do it. There were photographers.
Sony Bigwig: Do you have it on you?
Sony Biggest Wig: Good lord no. Why?
Sony Bigwig: I was just curious what it's like. I haven't seen one yet.
Sony Biggest Wig: Didn't we offer all the executives free ones?
Sony Bigwig: Well, yeah, but all my music is MP3, so I just bought an iPod instead. But anyway, yeah, yours would have been one of the six.
Sony Biggest Wig: I see. Well, did anyone else here buy one?
[Five hands go up.]
Sony Biggest Wig: Wait, why?
Sony Littler Wig A: We were with you for that photo op, remember?
Sony Bigwig: [to Little Wig A] Hey, can I see yours?
Sony Littler Wig A: I gave it to my niece. I've got MP3s.
Sony Bigwig: Well, does anyone here have theirs?
[Murmurs and general sounds of "no"]
Sony Littler Wig B: My dog uses mine for a chew toy.
Anyway, it kind of goes on like that for a while, until eventually they decide that adding MP3 support to Sony's players might not necessarily be such a bad idea after all. Reportedly only the company's flash-based players will be updated at first, but even the iPod knock-offs "might" get MP3 compatibility in the future. We're guessing that decision will come after the holiday sales numbers come out, which will show that Apple and Hewlett-Packard will have moved a combined total of over three million iPods in the fourth calendar quarter, whereas during the same time period, Sony will have sold an additional eleven units-- all to Sony employees brown-nosing for promotions. We can't wait to listen in on that meeting.
