Less than four years after announcing a partnership that would see Bosch take over the sales and marketing of Sony-branded cameras in every market except Japan, the two companies on Wednesday said that they had decided to end their collaboration.
A spokesperson for Bosch told SecurityInfoWatch that the company would continue to distribute Sony-branded video security products until December 2020, after which the sales cooperation agreement will be terminated. No other products will be distributed by Bosch following the end of the partnership except for one multi-sensor camera model, the spokesperson added.
In a statement provided to SecurityInfoWatch on Friday, a spokesperson for Sony said that all Sony-branded cameras, with the exception of the SNC-WL862, will be discontinued by December. Bosch, however, will continue to provide maintenance served for the existing Sony products and systems.
"We decided to discontinue security camera products (except SNC-WL862) based on multiple factors, including customer needs, the latest market environment, and expected mid-to-long term business growth," the statement read.
Perhaps one of the biggest missteps by Sony in the market, according to Danielle VanZandt, industry analyst for security at research firm Frost & Sullivan, was the company’s lack of focus on providing features above and beyond image quality.
“While Bosch found ways to keep itself relevant during the rapid rise of Hikvision, Dahua, and Axis Communications by keeping its cameras priced well, feature-rich, and improving image quality, Sony did not appear to follow the same trajectory,” she added. “Rather, Sony focused more on image quality only and did not seem to consider analytics inclusion or other features that other camera manufacturers moved to include as a new standard. As such, when customers looked between the two brands (even if it was coming from the same sales force), Bosch cameras would win out due to these additional features and sometimes replace Sony cameras within existing deployments.”
