Sony's Blu-ray: Betamax Lesson Learned

Sony Corporation (SNE) appears to have learned its lesson from the Betamax/VHS format war. As some already know, Sony was the primary backer of the Betamax format introduced in 1975 that competed with--and eventually--lost market share to VHS. The VHS format was introduced in 1976 by JVC and it proceeded to wear down Sony to the point where Sony began producing a VHS player in 1988, effectively ending that format battle. There is a similar battle for high definition [HD] movie disc technological supremacy today between Sony’s Blu-ray and Toshiba’s (TOSBF.PK) HD DVD formats. This format battle has been going on for almost two years but it is all but determined that Sony’s Blu-ray will win this one.