As someone who's worked in the computer industry since 1980, I have seen time and again ad nauseum that there is a big difference between announcing and delivering.
02-27-08: Unsound
Sony has recently announced the next generation of Blue Ray players, and all of the above issues seemed to have been resolved, with the curious exception of SACD support.
Companies like IBM and Sony "announce" to freeze the customer base from drifting to another solution. For them, an announcement is like a Tom Brady pump fake.
Case in point: Look how Sony's announcement of their dodgy 2-layer 50GB technology kept customers from embracing Toshiba's 30GB dual-layer disc for the elegant solution it was.