special report

REUTERS/Toshiyuki Aizawa stumbles: Did Stringer's makeover fail? Slow response to a huge hacking attack exposed frailties and raise questions about whether its culture remains too bureaucratic and complacent

By Tim Kelly and Kenneth Li and dumplings at a Chinese restaurant in politics and a series of disruptive divisional TOKYO/NEW YORK, May 23 downtown Tokyo. reorganizations ensured the product never He was referring to a flat panel device that got the management focus it needed to ad Sony stuck with the Airboard predated the iPad by a decade yet boasted succeed, Maeda says. portable computer it launched in video, touch screen typing and Internet Morphing it into Location Free TV -- a 2000,H Satoru Maeda rather than Apple's access. device through which you can watch local Steve Jobs might have been feted as the A hefty price tag and patchy picture TV channels anywhere -- wasn't enough creator of tablet PCs. quality were among the reasons the product, to convince Sony or the marketplace that "I was the inventor of the Airboard," says which in hindsight looks like it was ahead it was going to work. The project that was Maeda between mouthfuls of fried prawn of its time, didn't initially take off. Internal once touted as being as revolutionary as the

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Sony's audio player is seen at its showroom in Tokyo May 4, 2011. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Walkman was dropped entirely in 2008. Maeda said he knew a year earlier that Diverging fortunes: Sony vs Apple Sony under , who became CEO in 2005, was going to kill his invention. Share price performance - $ Sony Apple His boss sent him an e-mail saying he was 400 taking it over. MARKET CAP Soon after, he quit the company he Sony: $27 bln / Apple: $310 bln 300 had joined in 1979 when Sony launched the Walkman and was one of the coolest

companies around. It was a heyday Stringer 200 pledged to restore, but Maeda, who is now at audio visual equipment maker JVC Kenwood, no longer sees returning. 100 "Sony old boys liked Airboard and Location Free TV because it was doing something new, which is what they did at Sony," said Maeda. 0 "The current Sony people have no experience 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 with such things because they haven't 1994: Sony launches the PlayStation 1997: Jobs returns afrer being ousted in 1985. He became 1995: Sony debuts its first consumer-use digital Apple's permanent CEO in 2000. introduced any new products for about 10 video camcorder. 2001: Apple opens its first retail store and debuts the iPod years." 1997: Sony unveils the home-use PC "" digital music player. 2003: Apple launches the iTunes music store. Still beset by turf wars, secrecy, 1999: Nobuyuki ldei succeeds as CEO 2000: Sony launches PlayStation 2. 2007: Apple debuts the iPhone and opens the App store in complacency and a bloated innovation- the following year. 2003: Sony introduces the Blu-ray disc. killing corporate bureaucracy, Maeda and 2009: Jobs takes a six-month leave of absence and 2005: Howard Stringer replaced ldei as CEO undergoes a liver transplant. He was diagnosed with other Sony refugees insist their former 2006: Sony releases PlayStation 3. pancreeatic cancer in 2004. employer is in dire straits and Stringer, who 2011: Sony unveils the Android tablet PC; the PlayStation 2010: Apple unveils the iPad, its touch-screen tablet. Network was compromised in April - 77 mln user accounts 2011: Jobs takes second leave of absence but appeared at is 69, is running out of time to deliver on his the March launch of the iPad 2. were hacked. promise of reinventing the company. Certainly Stringer can boast of his role in Sources: Companies, Thomson Reuters. Reuters graphic/Christine Chan 05/20/11 developing 3-D film-making and the victory of the Sony-backed Blu-ray technology in problem and Sony's subsequent inability to magnitude of the problems. the next generation format wars. But Sony, quickly close other weak spots vulnerable to A procession of top executives at U.S. despite its iconic brand, remains out of step hackers that has left a stain. technology companies who spoke at Reuters with the rest of the global technology world "Too big to succeed comes to mind," a Global Technology Summit last week didn't and its talent for crowd-pleasing innovation former senior manager involved until recently mince their words when asked about Sony. has largely evaporated. with Sony's PlayStation game console told Robert Glaser, chairman of Internet media A hacking scandal that in April exposed Reuters, declining to be identified because company RealNetworks Inc, likened more than 100 million accounts of users of of the sensitivity of the comments. "I was at Stringer's task of rehabilitating Sony to its online gaming network to possible data PlayStation, considered the most flexible "introducing capitalism to a Soviet-bloc theft not only hurt its image but threatens of the Sony units, but ironically that was country after 50 years of communism." an online strategy meant to unite a disparate crippled by over-secretive IT security, a lack corporation and could upset a carefully of a coherent management structure and CAUTIONARY TALE crafted succession plan for when Stringer a lot of dead wood at the top. It was harder The erosion of Sony's standing is steps down. to work across Sony units than to work with a cautionary tale of what can happen to It wasn't so much the security breach itself outside partners," he said. technology companies when innovators move but the delays in informing customers of the It isn't only former insiders who see the on. Back when Sony, led by co-founder Akio

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Morita, launched the Walkman, it proved an inspiration to the founders of the then little- known startup company: Apple Computers. "Sony had the most incredibly well-thought out products in the world. We wanted to be like that from day one," Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, told Reuters recently. At the time, "no other company in the world was the model for consumer electronics." As Japan's seemingly unstoppable economy expanded through the 1980s, Sony remained the consumer electronics benchmark as Morita handed over the creative mantle to maverick Norio Ohga, a trained opera singer who caught the founder's attention by writing to complain about the quality of Sony's audio tapes. Ohga, who died in April aged 81, is best remembered for convincing the world to give up vinyl in favor of CDs and for green-lighting one young executive's ploy to beat Nintendo at its own game with the PlayStation. The serial successes, though, bred complacency. "If you had the Sony name on the back of your shirt you were fine, so they Sony shows off the new CD Walkman at the 20th anniversary celebration marking the first Walkman headphone stereo in Tokyo on July 1, 1999. REUTERS/Toshiyuki Aizawa stopped thinking," Maeda says. In 1989, the Japanese economic juggernaut stalled and the benchmark Nikkei index "If you had the Sony name on topped out just shy of 39,000, marking the the back of your shirt you were fine, start of an asset value slump that continues to sap Japan's economic vitality 22 years later. so they stopped thinking." That same year, amid a frenetic Japanese TOO ORDINARY saying, 'We're so screwed.' No one in that pursuit of landmark overseas assets, Sony When Stringer was appointed Sony's group was going to say 'Why the fuck do we made its first big mistake. Chairman and CEO in 2005 he was keen to need a (computer) mouse.'" The company bought Hollywood studio show that he could revitalize the company's Sony's problem, offers Hironobu Yokota, a for $3.9 billion from the reputation for creativity. As a Welshman procurement manager who left Sony in 1995 Coca Cola Company. It was a business and running a Japanese company, but who because "all the misfits had left" is that it culture that Sony didn't fully understand and understood its corporate culture, he was has become ordinary, a condition he says is became a big distraction for management. seen as having a better chance of shaking it worsening. Five years later as Ohga handed Sony over up than most. "I have consulted for Sony several times to it was forced to write off $2.7 After a bruising first year of heavy losses, since I left. Looking at it from the outside, it is billion from the purchase after a string of he was anxious to kick off the annual basically getting worse and worse," explains costly box-office flops. management meeting at Tokyo's Grand Yokota. Seven years later, Apple's Steve Jobs, Prince Hotel New Takanawa on an optimistic Even the engineer Sony eventually picked inspired by Sony's Walkman, launched the note. Stringer trotted out a group of what he to do battle with Apple is now among the iPod digital player. It was a seminal event for claimed were the 50 brightest engineers that Sony refugees, and has become one of its Apple and a huge warning for Sony. Sony had to show the 1,200-strong crowd of fiercest critics to boot. In one move, Apple ended Sony's managers gathered in the ballroom. Koichiro Tsujino, who spearheaded the dominance of the music player market and "These are our future," Stringer boasted development of Sony's Vaio laptop, left left little doubt that Sony was heading for a of the group of the cleanest, most well- the company in 2006 and later headed full-blown crisis. composed assemblage of geeks, recalls one up Google's Japanese unit before recently Back in 2000, Sony's market value had former Sony executive in attendance that establishing his own cloud computing been more than seven times Apple's. Today, morning. company. His last project at Sony had been Sony's market value is only one eleventh of They "were the equivalent of scrubbed, to develop a rival to the iPod. Apple's, and its share price is little changed West Point recruits," he said in reference to Tsujino blames much of his former from 1995 -- the year it launched the digital a prestigious U.S. military academy. "No employer's problems on failures of corporate camcorder. tattoos, no piercings, no 14-year-olds," the governance and petty jealousies that he former Sony manager said. "I remember says crushed what had been a creative

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atmosphere much like that at Google now. strategy," he added. "The biggest difference between Google In the biggest ever theft of data on record, and Sony is that Google doesn't waver," says hackers stole details from more than 100 Tsujino. million accounts of Sony's PlayStation "Japanese companies, including Sony, Network and PC-based online gaming tend to waver. Sony is typical of this. That was service as well as its Qriocity music service. how it was when I left. They start working on It prompted outrage from users, 90 percent an Internet project, but when it doesn't work of whom are based in the United States and out they will drop it in a year," said Tsujino at Europe, not just because the company closed his office in Tokyo. the network down but because it waited a Sony, he insists, needs someone like Ohga week to announce the breach. -- unafraid to be "absurd, irrational and Critics, including the hacker community outrageous." and Wall Street analysts, laid the blame As more Sonyites from the golden era squarely on Sony, for going to war with depart, the only traces left behind of famed hackers and programmers who have dared innovator Morita is the air of elitism, says to crack the code in its systems. Osamu Katayama, a business writer who In 2001, Sony threatened legal action in 2010 published a book "The Stringer against one owner of the Aibo, Sony's Revolution: What has he changed at Sony". dog, after the owner posted software Morita he explains tried to become a pillar showing other owners how to make the Aibo of the Japanese establishment, his ambition dance. And earlier this year, it took George to head the prestigious Keidanren business Hotz to court after the famed hacker, known lobby. As a result "Sony has a very strong for unlocking Apple's iPhone, cracked open sense of being elite," says the author, who the PlayStation 3 to let owners run their own also dismisses Sony under Stringer as an software. "ordinary company." This contrasts with the behavior of many "Somebody needs to change Sony. I other major technology companies, who at thought Stringer would change things a bit least seek a partial accommodation with more, but it seems there were limits to what elements in the hacking community, and he could do," says Katayama. certainly don't go out of their way to make Sony could still find inspiration from its enemies. humble beginnings. "Nobody knows about The Internet breach sparked thousands the days when Sony was just a neighborhood of comments on the official PlayStation fan Sony's logo on VAIO laptop cases are seen at an workshop and nobody tries to retain that electronics shop in Tokyo May 4, 2011. REUTERS/Kim page on Facebook and on its blog, some of spirit as they do at Honda," Katayama says, Kyung-Hoon them from users who said they would switch noting that the Japanese car company, which to rival games networks, such as Xbox Live, a eschews memberships in the clubs of Japan's started to result in hybrid products such as Microsoft Corp product. corporate elite, has managed to retain the Xperia Play -- everyone outside Sony refers to Sony insists it wasn't too slow to admit the entrepreneurial spirit and atmosphere of a it as the PlayStation phone -- from handset breach, although Sony watchers speculate street corner workshop. operation Sony Ericcson. that Sony may have been loath to admit it Honda still lets its engineers roam. It is The massive Internet security breach the had been hit by hackers and wanted to play renowned for giving them creative free rein company suffered in April is all the more down the attack. to conduct fundamental research that may difficult for the company to come to terms It took Stringer another two weeks before never end up as a product -- engineers have with because it risks hurting that strategy by breaking his silence on the issue and then he unraveled the genome of rice, experimented damaging an online service that connected unapologetically defended the delays, saying on cockroaches to see how they avoid the dots. they weren't bad by corporate standards. collision and designed and built a small jet "The PlayStation network and Speaking at a press roundtable last aircraft. (entertainment platform) Qriocity were really Tuesday, where he fed journalists breakfast Google is known for having established intended to be a bridging and ecosystem on the 30th floor of Sony's New York similar creative time for its staff while Jobs approach, trying to tie together the TVs, the headquarters to mark the sixth birthday of at Apple is known for keeping his core PlayStation, PSP, really tying in all of those the PlayStation 3 games console, Stringer development team to a size where he can devices together into a complete ecosystem," downplayed the breach, describing it as remember everyone's name. says Mark Harding, an analyst who follows "hackers stealing games that were already Sony for U.S.-based investment company the free." HACKING EXPOSES WEAKNESSES Maxim Group. "You're telling me my week wasn't fast Stringer has sought to unleash "If people lose faith and trust in the security enough? We had to know what had been creative juices by creating partnerships of a commerce platform or an ecosystem stolen rather than leaking information out between disconnected business units, a platform like that, it does do damage to the piece by piece and panicking customers," he strategy that he can claim has at least said.

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Attendees Dominie Liang (L) and Ruslan Belkin utilize the common area at the Google I/O Developers Conference in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, May 11, 2011. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach "The biggest difference between Google and Sony is that Google doesn't waver." The defiance didn't go down so well with some PlayStation customers. One blogger on website techdirt.com concluded, "CEO Howard Stringer apparently has come to the conclusion that there's still plenty of room for more foot in Sony's mouth." To make matters worse, there were disclosures about three further problems with the security of Sony websites last week. The company was forced to shut down a site it set up to help users affected by April's breach after it found what it called a "security hole". Then, Internet security firm F-Secure disclosed that a hacked page on a Sony website in Thailand directed users to a fake site posing as an Italian credit card company. And, separately, Sony's So-Net unit that provides Internet service in Japan alerted customers that an intruder had broken into its system and stole virtual points worth $1,225 from account holders. It all adds to the loss of appeal compared with Apple and other rivals. Men walk past an advertisement for Apple's iPad2 in front of an electronic shop in Tokyo on May 5, 2011. Apple's suite of products -- from its iMac REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon PCs, its iPod digital music players and content-providing iTunes stores, plus its televisions and trove of music and movies. hours and days ahead of Apple gadget wildly successful iPhone and iPad tablet "The standard has to be, 'Where is the launches. computers -- have won legions of fans for product I'm going to line up the night The stumbling is happening in a world their integration and sleek designs. before to buy?'" says Steve Jacobs, a former where companies like Apple and Google are This is much less the case for Sony's vice president of broadband strategy and moving at an astonishing speed. "Sony has Vaio computers, PlayStation games, Sony alliances at Sony Electronics in the United to change if it's to compete in that race," Ericsson mobile phones, MP3 players, States, alluding to the throngs that wait says Geoff Blaber, an analyst with UK-based

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"creating an environment that stresses a spirit of freedom and open-mindedness, where employees could fully exercise their skills and abilities." ­— sony's Shiro Kambe

Sony Corp's Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai bows his head with his executives Shiro Kambe (L) and Shinji Hasejima as they apologise for a massive security breach of its PlayStation Network at a news conference in Tokyo on May 1, 2011. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon technology research firm CCS Insight. "Sony team, who Stringer refers to as the four is seeking to deliver content and services GUSHING PRAISE musketeers. across multiple devices and platforms, but Most at risk of taking the blame for Yoshioka is an engineer by training and the product groups and corporate structure is Sony's latest debacle is Stringer's right- executive who runs Sony's non-consumer very, very fragmented compared to Apple." hand man, Kazuo Hirai, who was anointed by businesses, including semiconductors, Sony declined to make Stringer or another Stringer in March to eventually carry the CEO batteries and other key components. The top executive available for interview for this baton. analyst suggests he would have difficulty in article. "Since he is in charge of networks, he is the struggling to unite Sony's non-cooperating In a statement its head of corporate obvious candidate to take charge of sorting units. communications Shiro Kambe said the this out." offers Katayama. "Of course, if An alternative figure who may play a key company "will continue to aim to capitalize he can't manage that the way up will be role is George Bailey. Stringer hired the on the unique strengths our rivals do not blocked." former IBM technology guru in 2009, for the have - such as the broad deployment of our For the moment Hirai is getting gushing newly created post of Chief Transformation products globally and our diverse business praise from Stringer. While he was being Officer. line." piped in through a video conferencing Bailey, who reports directly to Stringer, He said that a realignment in March connection into the New York roundtable was brought in to help accelerate Sony's and some other initiatives would "further on Tuesday, Stringer described him as "very turnaround. integrate the full range of Sony's assets" and helpful and very demonstrative." Gamers, "While the groundbreaking iPod was only allow for the next phases of the company's insisted Stringer, "like Kaz." launched in October 2001, Jobs initially built growth and development. Yet it is difficult to think that Hirai won't a team, restructured the supply-chain and Kambe also said that Sony's founding have to take some of the blame, potentially partnered with value-chain companies," principles -- "creating an environment damaging his chances of being the next CEO. CLSA analyst Atul Goyal said in a report that stresses a spirit of freedom and open- Stringer's next best choice, says an analyst, comparing Sony and Apple. "Now, we believe mindedness, where employees could fully who declined to be identified because of it is Bailey's turn to do the same at Sony. We exercise their skills and abilities" -- was the sensitivity of the issue, could be Hiroshi argue that Sony is just such a turnaround or still true today. The company had unveiled Yoshioka, an executive who along with transformation story." numerous exciting products in the past few Kunimasa Suzuki, Yoshihisa Ishida and Hirai Whoever follows Stringer to the top of months, he added. is a member of Sony's elite management Sony, pressure will be on the new boss to

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quickly exit from thin-margin or loss making operations such as phones, televisions, and peripheral businesses, including financial services, analysts predict. "I would be very focused on a narrow set of products," advises the CEO of web security company Symantec, Enrique Salem, also speaking at the Reuters Summit. "If you look at what happened at Sony over the last 15 years they've diversified their portfolio and I would pick one or two things I wanted to spend all of my time on to make sure they are the very best in the market." Another of Sony's options may be to seek closer cooperation with U.S. Internet giant Google. Sony is already warming to Google's Android operating system -- notably partnering with the Internet search leader on Google TV. The U.S. company could help tie together the Japanese company's treasure trove of content and products with Google's software and innovation -- if that were to in 2000, an award he shares with Morita who LG and Samsung. happen, industry watchers argue, Sony could was made an honorary knight in 1993. Before taking over as CEO, Stringer had then hope to take on Apple. Stringer, who is described on the company burnished his belt-tightening reputation by "It is now moving in the right direction but website as less of a number's guy than a cutting $700 million in expenses at Sony's does not have the luxury of time that it had 10 creative leader, has had successes such as U.S. operations. More recently, in 2009, years back," said CLSA's Goyal. the Blu-ray optical discs victory over the as Sony struggled during the post Lehman Whoever ends up running Japan's best alternative format HD-DVD. Yet, Sony under shock recession, he pared $3 billion more off known consumer electronics brand for the his watch has yet to find the game changer Sony's costs by laying off 16,000 workers and next 10 years should look to give its best able to wow consumers like an iPhone or an halving the number of suppliers it uses to people the space and flexibility to work iPad. 1,200 companies. and think freely, advises Apple co-founder Unlike Morita, remembered as the Prudent management, however, isn't Wozniak. creative force behind the Walkman, enough to lift the despair that has descended "It's kind of like the liberal arts side of the televisions and other hits that made his not just on Sony but on some other major company. The emotion, the heart has to be company a household name, or hands-on companies in deflation-ravaged Japan since as strong as the brain and the engineering. innovator Jobs, Stringer has been happy to the bubble burst two decades ago. Right now that doesn't really happen. let others show off the goods. In its May edition, Japan's Bungei Shunju, Companies are all based on the money guys Jobs, a consummate salesman has a widely read current affairs magazine, and who has done what before," he said. personally launched most of Apple's most lamented the demise of Sony in a piece successful products over the past decade. quoting an engineer who had left for a rival STRINGER LEGACY Stringer on the other hand was not present at consumer electronics firm. For Stringer, likely closer to the end the launch of either of Sony's most important "It's obvious the days will never again come of his term than the beginning, the legacy he products of recent years, its new hand-held when we marveled at the quality of sound leaves may be that of the cost cutter rather game device and the tablet computers it from a Sony FM radio, or the beauty of the than the renaissance man he promised to be hopes can claim top spot behind Apple's images on a Trinitron TV, or the inspiration when he became the first foreigner to lead iPad. of the Walkman," the magazine wailed. "We the Japanese company. In the absence of any must-have gadget shouldn't expect Sony to shine as it once did." With Morita, Stringer shares a colorful emerging from Sony's labs, Stringer has Pondering Sony's future again over his past. Morita was the son of a soy sauce maker not been squeamish about cutting fat to lift dumplings in Tokyo, Airboard creator Maeda and a former Imperial army soldier. Stringer the company's bottom line, a strategy that is equally as glum. "I don't think Sony can too served in the military, conscripted to has delivered results for him throughout his change," he says. Not unless, he adds, "Sony fight in Vietnam after he arrived in the United career from CBS onwards. has a leader like Steve Jobs." States in 1964 with $100 he had earned as "Stringer cut fixed costs especially for a truck driver after graduating from Oxford production sites, making Sony more resilient (Reporting by Tim Kelly, Isabel Reynolds University. to stagnant revenue growth," said Yasuo and Nathan Layne in Tokyo, Kenneth Li and Landing a job as a journalist at CBS after Nakane, an analyst at Deutsche Securities in Liana Baker in New York, Poornima Gupta his discharge, he eventually went on to run Tokyo. It has allowed him to keep pace with in San Francisco and Jim Finkle in Boston. the American broadcaster. He was knighted productivity improvements at rivals such as Editing by Martin Howell in New York)

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Rob Glaser (Left), Chairman of RealNetworks, Anne Bouverot (Center), head of mobile services at Orange, and Enrique Salem (Right), president and CEO of Symantec speak during the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York and Paris, May 17-18, 2011. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/john schults Technology Executives: How would they fix Sony?

By bill rigby reinventions, and I would say the same PARIS/NEW YORK, May 23 would be true of Nokia, when the world changes and you have a set of assets that SUMMIT xecutives and officials from were incredibly valuable in the old world, For other news from the Reuters Global Ethe technology industry joined Reuters but in the new world you have to completely Technology Summit, click on: reporters at the Technology Summit in Paris reinvent what you are doing, massive scale http://link.reuters.com/meq69r and New York last week. They were asked becomes a disadvantage." how they would fix Sony. Here are some of "At that scale, it's like introducing technologies. the Sony Vaio was as effective their responses: capitalism into a Soviet Bloc country after as the MacBook Air. They just need to pick a 50 years of communism." few to focus on." ROB GLASER, CHAIRMAN, REAL "PlayStation could be the central point NETWORKS, and VENTURE PARTNER JEN-HSUN HUANG, CEO OF CHIP of the home entertainment system and AT ACCEL PARTNERS DESIGNER NVIDIA they've put a lot of resources into that." "Sony had a very siloed model of "The world for consumer electronics has innovation. You had the Walkman team, changed. It used to be about the device ANNE BOUVEROT, HEAD OF MOBILE you had the team doing PlayStation, you today it's really about the service." SERVICES, ORANGE had the Trinitron TV group." "All of my colleagues at Sony are obsessed "I think this is a difficult subject, and I "In the modern era, being as siloed as about bringing a software sensibility into wouldn't pretend that we know best. But they are creates a disadvantage in this that company." I think it's incredibly important that when connected world. Apple is the extreme "I think they are making that you handle customer data, whatever your other example. Jobs used the force of his transformation. As a large company it takes business, it's very important to have strong personality to make people work together a little bit more time." processes and good security rules in terms to make sure that when a new version of iOS of how you use this data." comes out it works really well on iPhones ENRIQUE SALEM, CEO OF SOFTWARE "I believe that this is something that and iPads." MAKER SYMANTEC CORP. we as operators are very careful about, "Apple's been able to forge this culture "Sony has a great brand. Let's not lose because we know the level of sensitivity where all these pieces work together in sight of its iconic consumer brand." that is associated with that. harmony, and Sony's at the other end of the "I would be very focused on a narrower set "We can not say that we will never have spectrum where they have this very siloed of products. If you look at what's happened issues like that, but it's about processes, culture." at Sony over the last 15 years, they've about rules and then it's about reacting "Howard Stringer has talked openly diversified their portfolio and I would pick in terms of communicating about the about this. One of the things he's tried to one or two things I wanted to spend all of major crisis which can happen regarding do, coming in as a Westerner, is to change my time on, to make sure they are the very security. And in the end it's about how you that culture, and it's super hard." best in the market." communicate with the consumers." "You look at these huge company "They do have some pretty impressive (Editing by Martin Howell in New York)

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A man walks past a Sony logo in front of an electronic shop in Tokyo May 3, 2011. REUTERS/ Kim Kyung-Hoon COVER PHOTO: Sony's personal IT television called "airboard" is shown at the launch of the information device at a Sony showroom in Tokyo September 28, 2000. REUTERS/Toshiyuki Aizawa

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