Toshiba: Refund HD DVD owners' money

By Lucas Mearian
Created Feb 27 2008 - 4:19pm

I'm still a bit stunned by the lightening fast speed with which Toshiba Corp. threw in the towel on manufacturing its HD DVD players after Warner Bros announced [1] it would be throwing its full support behind rival Blu-ray Disc format.

I've been watching the battle between the two next-generation, high-definition optical disc formats with keen interest and figured that Blu-ray would win at some point but not this point. After all, the battle between VHS and Betamax video tape formats dragged on for a decade in the 1970s and 1980s, so I figured this high-def DVD battle would last at least half that time. But alas, movie studios didn't want to repeat history (apparently Betamax supporter Toshiba didn't want to either), so they forced the industry's hand and pulled their support.

In the wake of Toshiba's decision are hundreds of thousands of consumers who shelled out anywhere from $100 to hundreds of dollars for an HD DVD player. While an HD DVD player is still an upconverting DVD player, and it can play whatever HD DVD movies have already been released, otherwise the boxes have no future. Without movie studio support, there will be no more HD DVD content to play on those boxes. I think Toshiba should at least offer some credit or rebate, particularly on the higher priced models and those purchased most recently.

But according to Valleywag, a Silicon Valley tech gossip pub, Toshiba has left its customers out to dry [2]. There will be no refunds. I checked with Toshiba customer support and I was told the same thing.

Some may take the position that consumers who gambled on HD DVD players while the format wars were going on got what they deserved. I don't. Consumers aren't always savvy, but that doesn't mean they should be taken advantage of. They trust that when they buy a product, it will have some reasonably viable future, and this product simply doesn't. "Now you have to go buy a Blu-ray player?" says Gloria Barczak, a professor of marketing at Northeastern University in Boston.

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FAILING GRADE

FROM HARTFORD BUSINESS JOURNAL

Are MBAs Worth Fat Paychecks?
Businesses still say yes, but complaints on the rise that MBA programs need to specialize

By Laura Schreier
Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer
02/18/08
Having the initials “MBA” on your resume is often a golden ticket, a sure-fire path to career advancement and a fatter salary.

Boston’s Northeastern University made its own MBA changes two years ago, said Thomas Moore, dean of the College of Business Administration. Rather than moving away from the MBA altogether, Northeastern reworked its programs — but Moore agreed with Earley’s assessment of the MBA’s current flaws.

“The one-size-fits-all, the general MBA, has lost some of its appeal,” he said. “The notion of a broad, general MBA that’s going to create this Renaissance manager and leader, those days are probably gone.”

Northeastern has tried to incorporate more specific programs on issues such as finance, marketing or supply chains, but the college has also added an emphasis on “soft skills” — such as project management abilities, data mining, communication.

Moore said they restructured their program based on advice from corporations such as Fidelity, W.R. Grace, State Street Bank and others, gathered from a series of focus groups. The process took about 15 months.

“It was a pretty extensive change,” he said. The school has since kept in contact with many corporations to gauge how the changes have fared in terms of real-world results, and Moore said those businesses are happy to be more involved in the process. Some of those strengthened academic-corporate bonds have helped increase the number of corporate residencies — similar to internships — offered for their students.

“Companies are paying a premium for the MBA, and they expect results,” he said.

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