On March 8th this month, Sony replaced Mr Idei’s and appointed the first non-Japanese chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer to run the media and electronics conglomerate. Suprisingly, but really interesting cos an outsider, an American will run the Japanese conglomerate.
Sony operates in a dizzying array of consumer-electronics segments, and so must fend off challenges from competitors across the technology spectrum. Samsung, a once-inferior South Korean rival, has embarrassed Sony by leaping ahead in flat-panel televisions. Apple’s iPod digital music players have become the Walkmans of the early 21st century. Sony’s digital cameras are among the best, but prices have been dropping and two long-standing rivals, Canon and Nikon, have regained their edge as digital photography has matured. And in game devices, an area where Sony still thrives, the next version of its PlayStation will face a much stiffer challenge from rival Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox.
Moreover, in the past Sony concluded that the best way to promote the adoption of its technologies was to get into the content business, since content owners have a big influence over which technology standards live or die. Hence its unique corporate combination of consumer electronics and content. But is the resulting hybrid a Frankenstein, or a new breed? That is the urgent question facing Sony’s new boss, Sir Howard Stringer.
Today, I was reading an article upon the Financial Times and it informed on the following. Sony is considering spinning off some businesses as part of a review to simplify the electronics and entertainment group’s complex structure, according to Ryoji Chubachi, Sony’s incoming president.
Would Sir Howard Stringer turnaround the company and return to focus on Sony’s core business “making electronics”, and spin-off the media business? As in the old-days would it be again “Only Sony”? We will know over the upcoming weeks/months it will be interesting to watch closely!
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