Sony will bid farewell to its optical disk business owing to the recent market trends that seem to have no place for traditional PC design.
Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, two Japanese publications reported that Sony will mark its departure from the optical disk market making way for restructuring of the company. Sony will be out of this business by next year said Asahi Shimbun but the Japan Times reported the date as November. Atsugi-based Sony Opitarc optical disk division will be shutting down by March next year. The unit will be liquidated eventually.
Sony plans to trim its global workforce by 10,000 by the end of March. Nearly 400 domestic and international employees of Sony will be offered early retirement plans. The rest of the employees will be shifted to various other positions in the company the Japan Times reported.
This news comes in as Sony posted a loss of $312 million earlier this month.
Though there has been fierce competition in the PC industry, the sales in the PC market have been dwindling. This is largely caused due to invasion of the widely successful tablets from Apple and Samsung. Many PC makers are adapting to new technology and there is a surge in development of ultrabooks by these makers. This leaves no space for optical discs as ultrabooks are too small to have optical discs. Ultrabook manufactures have preferred SSDs to optical disks as it is lighter and performs better, ZDNet said.
ZDNet also reported Sony announced last week that it will have a change its headquarters from Lund, Sweden to Tokyo, Japan. The changeover will result in a loss of nearly 1,000 jobs.
