Can Sony learn the lessons from the Sony PC?

On May 5, according to foreign media reports, Sony's pricing in the market is too high. Consumers away from high-end laptops may mean some pain for Apple.

If Sony's PC business fails so badly, then this may not be just a "Sony problem."

Sony recently stated that its PC business is worse than earlier this year's estimate. Is there anything more serious than Sony's failure? Sony announced on May 1st that its net loss for the current fiscal year will increase to US$1.25 billion. This is the third time Sony lowered its earnings forecast for 2013 fiscal year. Sony said that it lowered its expectation again, mainly because of PC. Sales fell, but also related to the additional 30 billion yen (about 293 million US dollars) PC-related "reorganization costs."

Obviously, consumers and retailers are moving away from the Vaio brand and causing Sony to withdraw from the PC business. This is partly due to the fact that Sony's Vaio brand positioning is out of the market and consumers abandon high-end PC products. But the entire PC fiasco began with Sony pricing itself, which was overpriced. And consumers abandon high-end PC products only to accelerate this process.

Can Sony's PC help Apple learn its lesson?

Apple recently announced the price reduction of its MacBook Air to US$899, which will allow retailers to reduce the 2013 Airs (11.6 inches) price to around US$800, making the price of the previous 11.6-inch 2013 MacBook Air lower than 64GB iPad Air LTE. Flat panel, which is not good news for high-end notebook products such as Vaio Pro 11, Vaio Pro 11 is still more than US$ 1,000 in Amazon and other retailers.

It is worth noting that Apple has increased the price of the iPad and increased the 128GB iPad Air LTE price to 929 US dollars, which exceeds the 128GB MacBook Air product launched this year.

Apple found: cut prices, otherwise it will perish in the laptop market.

According to a survey conducted by IDC on the US consumer PC market, IDC expects shipments of Apple PC products will fall by 7% this year. One of the ways Apple wants to solve this problem is to cut prices, just as Apple has recently adopted its most popular MacBook product strategy.

PC makers such as Toshiba and Samsung will all reduce PC product prices. How long will they continue? How will Apple price the 12-inch Retina MacBook? Should the company consider re-pricing of Retina MacBook Pro starting at $1299? Whether Apple wants it or not, it will come earlier.

The writer is BrookeCrothers, the chief reporter of CNET, the US technology information network.