Why has Sony got such a bad name? Didn't they buy the photographic part of Konica/Minolta? I always thought these made very decent cameras/lenses.
I went to the "SONY store" at a big regional shopping mall this weekend, and walked in and right to the d-slr counter, which is a two-piece, circular sales counter. Inside the circle were two sales associates, one in his late 30's to his early 40's, another in his late 20's. I stopped and looked at the Sony products, and BOTH sales associates WALKED OUT of the area, without even turning around to look at me nor to even say "Hello, welcome to the Sony store," or to even GLANCE in my direction. These two A-holes were within 5 feet of me, and they were yakking to one another....I had walked RIGHT PAST them, and within 10 feet of them, on my way in. I took my iPhone out and checked the time: 2:11 PM. I stayed there at the counter, going down the line of products. Another customer entered, and walked past me, and up to the video camera sales area behind me. A salesman greeted him. "Hi! How can I help you today,sir?" he asked. This customer had been there for maybe FIVE seconds. I turned around and looked at the customer and the sales associate, then turned back to the camera case FILLED with SONY d-slr bodies. After about a five to six minute stand-around, an older sales associate, Sam, approached me. I told him I was irritated by the lack of sales effort, and the fact that TWO salesmen had stood not five feet from me, and both had WALKED OUT ON ME, without greeting me, or even turning to face me...and that then another sales associate had helped a guy who walked in, while he had ignored ME for some time. PATHETIC sales effort!!! On the part of three associates!
THIS might be an example of why SONY has such a bad reputation. Of course, it could also be the company's previous efforts to establish ridiculous proprietary standards, like the Memory Stick memory format, or the Betamax video tape format, or the way it tried to enforce 100% sales price uniformity across the entire network of dealers some years back...it's hard to say...but SONY has developed a "reputation"...let's just say that...