The sony resource page

Sony Corporation (Japanese:ソニー株式会社 Sonī Kabushiki-gaisha^?) is a Japanese multinational corporation and one of the world's largest media conglomerates. It is headquartered in Tokyo. It is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video games, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets.

Sony Corporation is an operating-holding company. It is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engaged in business through its six operating segments — electronics, music, games, motion pictures, financial services and other. These make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal business operations include Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics in the U.S.), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Sony Financial Holdings.

Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of approximately $67 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005^[2], and it employs 158,100 people worldwide.^[3] Sony's consolidated sales in the U.S. for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005 were $18.4 billion. As a semiconductor maker, Sony is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.

History

In 1945, after World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in a bombed-out building in Tokyo.^[4] The next year he was joined by his colleague Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K.^[5], which translates in English to Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. The company built Japan's first tape recorder called the Type-G.^[6]

In the early 1950s, Ibuka traveled in the United States and heard about Bell Labs' invention of the transistor.^[7] He convinced Bell to license the transistor technology to his Japanese company. While most American companies were researching the transistor for its military applications, Ibuka looked to apply it to communications. While the American companies Regency and Texas Instruments built transistor radios first, it was Ibuka's company that made the first commercially successful transistor radios.

In August 1955, Sony produced its first coat-pocket sized transistor radio they registered as the TR-55 model.^[8] In 1956, Sony reportedly manufactured about 40,000 of its Model TR-72 box-like portable transistor radios and exported the model to North America, the Netherlands and Germany.

That same year they made the TR-6, a coat pocket radio which was used by the company to create its "SONY boy" advertising character.^[9] The following year, 1957, Sony came out with the TR-63 model, then the smallest (112 × 71 × 32 mm) transistor radio in commercial production. It was a worldwide commercial success.^[10]

University of Arizona professor Michael Brian Schiffer, Ph.D., says, "Sony was not first, but its transistor radio was the most successful. The TR-63 of 1957 cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid 1950s, American teens had began buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5,000,000 units by the end of 1958. However, this huge growth in portable transistor radio sales that saw Sony rise to be the dominant player in the consumer electronics field ^[11] was not because of the consumers who had bought the earlier generation of tube radio consoles, but was driven by a distinctly new American phenomenon at the time called Rock and Roll.

Company name

When Kogyo was looking for a romanized name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not, is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TKK.^[12]. The company occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name, during his visit to the United States. Another early name that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name.^[13]

The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, the English word "sunny", and from the word Sonny-boys which is Japanese slang for "whiz kids". However "Sonny" was thought to sound too much like the Japanese saying soh-nee which means business goes bad^{citation needed]}. Morita pushed for a word that does not exist in any language so that they could claim the word "Sony" as their own (which paid off when they sued a candy producer who also used the name who claimed that "Sony" was just an existing word in some language).^[14]

At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters instead of Chinese characters to spell its name. The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui, had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval.^[15]

As a result of this persistence, Sony has now developed into a leading international manufacturer producing a variety of products throughout the electronics market, music and gaming industries, film, and many more besides.

Sony Electronics' notable products and technologies

A * denotes a proprietary format. Question marks indicate products no longer sold as of 2006 with an unknown year of withdrawal.

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Future

Sony is one of the few electronics companies with manufacturing and assembly plants in the United States of America.

Management

On March 7, 2005, Sony Corp. announced that Nobuyuki Idei will step down as Chairman and Group CEO and will be replaced by Briton Sir Howard Stringer, current Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation of America, Corporate Executive Officer, Vice Chairman and COO Sony Entertainment Business Group. Sony's decision to replace Idei with the British Howard Stringer will mark the first time that a foreigner will run a major Japanese electronics firm. Sony Corp. also announced on the same date that current president, Kunitake Ando, will step down and be replaced by Ryoji Chubachi. ^[16]

Mergers and acquisitions

Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of Sony are: Peter Bonfeld, Ryoji Chubachi, Sakie Fukushima, Hirobumi Kawano, Yotaro Kobayashi, Göran Lindahl, Yoshihiko Miyauchi, Akishige Okada, Howard Stringer, Fueo Sumita, and Yoshiaki Yamauchi.^[17]^[18]

Proprietary formats

Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies. The most infamous of these was the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when Sony marketed its Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC. In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the marketplace and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs and Sony adopted the format.

Since then, Sony has continued to introduce its own versions of storage technologies, with varying success. Examples include:

Controversies

Fictitious movie reviewer

In July 2000, a marketing executive working for Sony Corporation created a fictitious film critic, David Manning, who gave consistently good reviews for releases from Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures, which generally received poor reviews amongst real critics. ^[20] A parody in 2004 was made involving Garfield the movie (which ironically had mostly all negative reviews), which has David Manning giving it two thumbs up because he will like any movie. However, it was made by 20th Century Fox, not Columbia Pictures.

Digital rights management

In October 2005, it was revealed by Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals that Sony BMG Music Entertainment's music CDs had installed a rootkit on the user's computer as a DRM measure (called Extended Copy Protection by its creator, British company First 4 Internet), which was extremely difficult to detect or to remove. This constitutes a crime in many countries, and poses a major security risk to affected users, as well as a small drain on computer system resources. The uninstaller Sony initially provided removed the rootkit, but in turn installed a dial-home program that posed an even greater security risk — a fact that drew further criticism of Sony's actions. Sony eventually provided an actual uninstaller that removed all of Sony's DRM program from the user's computer. Sony BMG is facing several class action lawsuits regarding this matter.^{citation needed]}

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the PlayStation (PS) gaming console in Italy, Sony released an ad depicting a man smiling towards the camera and wearing on his head a crown of thorns with button symbols (Triangle, O, X, Square). At the bottom, the copy read as "Ten Years of Passion". This outraged the Vatican as well as many local Catholic believers, prompting comments such as "Sony went too far" and "Vatican excommunicates Sony". After the incident, the campaign was quickly discontinued.^{citation needed]}

Sony also admitted in late 2005 to hiring graffiti artists to spraypaint advertisements for their PlayStation Portable game system in seven major U.S. cities including New York City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and San Francisco, California.^{citation needed]} The mayor of Philadelphia has filed a cease and desist order and may file a criminal complaint. According to Sony, they are paying businesses and building owners for the right to graffiti their walls.^[21] As of early January 2006, Sony has no plans to keep or withdraw them.

In July 2006, Sony released a Dutch advertising campaign featuring a white model dressed entirely in white and a black model garbed in black. The first ad featured the white model clutching the face of the black model. The words "White is coming" headlined one of the ads. The ad has been viewed as racist by critics.^[22] A Sony spokesperson responded that the ad does not have a racist message saying it was only trying to depict the contrast between the black PSP model and the new ceramic white PSP. Other pictures of the ad campaign includes the black model overpowering the white model.^[23]

Legal

In 2002, Sony Computer Entertainment America, marketer of the popular PlayStation game consoles, was sued by Immersion Corp. of San Jose, California which claimed that Sony's PlayStation "Dual Shock" controllers infringed on Immersion's patents. In 2004, a federal jury agreed with Immersion, awarding the company US$82 million in damages. A U.S. district court judge ruled on the matter in March, 2005 and not only agreed with the federal jury's ruling but also added another US$8.7 million in damages. Microsfts Corp.'s XBOX was also sued. Washington Post: Pay Judgment Or Game Over, Sony Warned

Consumer criticism

Many of Sony's proprietary measures for media including MiniDisc, Betamax tapes, and other media has generated public outcry. Due to JVC's willingness to license the VHS format to other vendors, Sony's Betamax has been thwarted out of consumer production rendering it a marketing flop (a related, but not identical, format called Betacam is still used in professional film and video production due to its superior quality). A growing number of consumers complain that Sony's electronic products are no longer as durable as in the past.[1]

Batteries

On August 14, 2006, Sony and Dell admitted to major flaws in several Sony batteries that could result in the battery overheating and catching fire. As a result they recalled over 4.1 million laptop batteries in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history. The cost of this recall is being shared between Dell and Sony. Dell also confirmed that one of its laptops caught fire in Illinois.^[24] ^[25] This recall also prompted Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to order the companies to investigate the troubles with the batteries. The ministry said they must report on their findings and draw up a plan to prevent future problems by the end of August, or face a fine under Japan's consumer safety laws.^[26]

Ten days later on August 24, 2006, Apple Computer recalled 1.8 million Sony built batteries after receiving nine reports of batteries overheating, including two customers who suffered minor burns, and additional reports of property damage.^[27]

On September 19, 2006, Toshiba announced it was recalling 340 000 Sony laptop batteries. This recall, however, is not related to the recalls by Apple and Dell, as the batteries are known to cause the laptops to sometimes run out of power. No injuries or other accidents have been reported, according to Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Omori.^[28]

On September 23, 2006, Sony announced of its investigation^[29] of a Lenovo ThinkPad T43 laptop overheated and caught fire in Los Angeles International Airport on September 16, an incident that was confirmed by Lenovo. On September 28, 2006, Lenovo and IBM made the global recall of 526 000 laptop batteries.^[30]

On September 28, 2006, Sony announced a global battery exchange program in response to growing consumer concerns.^[31] On October 2, 2006, Hewlett-Packard (HP) determined that it is not necessary for HP to join the global battery replacement program.^[32]

On October 3, 2006, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Sony was aware of faults in its notebook PC batteries in December 2005 but failed to fully study the problem.^[33]^[34]

Trivia

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